Realtor 的词源

1916年，“房地产经纪人”这个词在美式英语中出现，像是从realty派生的一个代理名词。它是由明尼阿波利斯的房地产经纪人查尔斯·N·查德伯恩创造的，目的是为了区分房地产行业中合法的部分。这个词在1920年代变得流行，并在全国房地产委员会注册为Realtor（房地产经纪人）。

The 1916 Convention of the National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB) approved the adoption of the term as the official designation of an active member of the Association. In 1920 the District Court of Hennepin County, Minnesota, decided in favor of the Realtors in a case against a telephone directory publisher that had indiscriminately used the word in listings. The court asserted that the word "had never been used in any way whatsoever until so invented" and could thus be used only by those duly licensed by the National Association of Real Estate Boards. Until the Lanham Acts of 1948 changed federal patent regulations to allow protection for registered collective marks, the National Association fought and won sixteen cases on the local and state levels to protect its symbolic property. [Jeffrey M. Hornstein, "The Rise of Realtor," in "The Middling Sorts: Explorations in the History of the American Middle Class," New York, 2001]

1916年，全国房地产委员会（NAREB）在大会上批准将这一术语作为协会活跃成员的官方称谓。1920年，明尼苏达州亨内平县地方法院在一起诉讼中裁定支持房地产经纪人，案件涉及一家电话目录出版商随意使用该词进行 listings。法院指出，这个词“在被发明之前从未以任何方式使用过”，因此只有获得全国房地产委员会正式许可的人才能使用。直到1948年《兰汉法》修改了联邦专利法规，允许对注册集体商标提供保护，全国房地产委员会在地方和州级别共打赢了十六起案件，以保护其象征性财产。[杰弗里·M·霍恩斯坦，《房地产经纪人的崛起》，载于《中产阶级的探索：美国中产阶级历史研究》，纽约，2001年]