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Flower child or Flower Children originated as a synonym for hippie, especially those who gathered in San Francisco and environs during the summer of 1967, which was called the Summer of Love. It was the custom of "Flower Children" to wear flowers to symbolize peace and love. During the earliest years of its use, the term was most commonly used in the plural, only rarely in the singular.

Scott McKenzie's rendition of the song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" was released in May 1967. ^[1] The song was written by John Phillips to promote the June 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, and it urged visitors to San Francisco to "wear some flowers in (their) hair", in keeping with the festival's billing as "three days of music, love, and flowers":

If you're going to San Francisco,
be sure to wear some flowers in your hair...
If you come to San Francisco,
Summertime will be a love-in there.

"San Francisco" became an instant hit (#4 in the United States, #1 in the U.K. ^[2]) and quickly transcended its original purpose.

As many as 100,000 young people from all over the world flocked to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, Berkeley, and other Bay Area cities during the Summer of Love.[1] The Summer of Love became a watershed event in the development of a worldwide 1960s counterculture when newly recruited Flower Children returned home at the end of the summer, taking with them new styles, ideas, and behaviors and introducing them in all major U.S. and Western European cities.

The term achieved shades of political meaning when San Francisco Bay Area Flower Children gathered in Berkeley, California in April 1969 to participate in the planting of flowers, shrubs, grass, and trees during the building of People's Park. After authorities destroyed People's Park and installed an 8 ft (2.4 m) tall chain-link wire fence around its perimeter, planting flowers became a symbol of peaceful resistance. One of the most famous photos from the 1960s is of a young girl sliding a flower down the muzzle of a bayonetted rifle wielded by a National Guardsman assigned to guard People's Park on May 30, 1969.

In the singular, the term flower child was later appropriated to mean Generation X children who have been raised by hippie parents, whether the child was a hippie or not: as of the 1990s, flower child could refer to any child brought up in a hippie-like household or having a notably hippie name.^{[citation needed]} People having unusual names such as Cree Summer, Moon Unit, Rainbow Sun, Star, Sunshine, or other similar names might be referred to as flower children, regardless of their politics, parentage, or cultural background.

• Hippie
• Summer of Love
• Counterculture of the 1960s

1. ^ Scott McKenzie's web site.
2. ^ U.K. Number Ones 1960-69. Rockmine Archives.

• 'Flower Child' in the American Heritage Dictionary
• Online Etymology Dictionary
• Official Information on the single, San Francisco