Streets are normally named, and properties on them numbered, by decision of the
local authority, which may adopt a detailed policy. For instance the
city of Leeds, UK, provides that: • property developers should consult with councillors, historic groups, etc. Names should relate to the history of the area or reflect the local landscape and population; • no living person's names can be used, and the consent of the family is required to use those of the recently deceased; • no initial 'the', numbers, punctuation or abbreviations are allowed, except
St for
Saint; • no name may be changed without the consent of all affected property owners; • properties shall be numbered from the start of a street, with odd numbers on the left and even numbers on the right; • individual doors must have their own numbers; for sub-divisions with a shared entrance, flats should always be numbered or lettered but should not be described or suffixed (i.e.,
Flat 1, 36; or
Flat A, 36 but not
36A or
First Floor Flat, 36). Flat numbers should start at the main entrance of each floor and go
clockwise; • 'alias names' or 'Vanity Addresses' can be approved along with the number, but these must not be business names; • the
Royal Mail will only register properties which have their own secure
letterbox. The
etymology of a street name is sometimes very obvious, but at other times it might be obscure or even forgotten. In the United States, most streets are named after numbers, landscapes, trees (a combination of trees and landscapes such as "Oakhill" is used often in residential areas), or the surname of an important individual (in some instances, it is just a commonly held surname such as Smith). Some streets, such as Elm Street in
East Machias, Maine, have been renamed due to features changing. Elm Street's new name, Jacksonville Road, was chosen because it leads to the village of Jacksonville. Its former name was chosen because of
elm trees; it was renamed when all of the trees along the street succumbed to
Dutch elm disease.
The Shambles, derived from the
Anglo-Saxon term
fleshammels ("meat shelves" in butchers' stalls), is a historical street name which still exists in various cities and towns around
England. The best-known example is in
York. The unusual etymologies of quite a few street names in the United Kingdom are documented in
Rude Britain, complete with photographs of local
signage.
Type of commerce or industry In the past, many streets were named for the type of commerce or industry found there. This rarely happens in modern times, but many such older names are still common. Examples are London's
Haymarket; Barcelona's Carrer de Moles (Millstone Street), where the stonecutters used to have their shops; and
Cannery Row in Monterey, California.
Landmarks Some streets are named for
landmarks that were in the street, or nearby, when it was built. Such names are often retained after the landmark disappears. Barcelona's
La Rambla is officially a series of streets. The Rambla de Canaletes is named after a fountain that still stands, but the Rambla dels Estudis is named after the Estudis Generals, a university building demolished in 1843, and the Rambla de Sant Josep, the Rambla dels Caputxins, and the Rambla de Santa Monica are each named after former convents. Only the convent of Santa Monica survives as a building, and it has been converted to a museum. London's Crystal Palace Parade takes its name from a former
exhibition centre that stood adjacent to it, destroyed by fire in 1936. ,
Singapore, was named for the orchards that formerly lined the road Sometimes a street is named after a landmark that was destroyed to build that very street. For example, New York's
Canal Street takes its name from a canal that was filled in to build it. New Orleans'
Canal Street was named for the canal that was to be built in its right-of-way.
Self-descriptive names While names such as Long Road or Nine Mile Ride have an obvious meaning, some road names' etymologies are less clear. The various Stone Streets, for example, were named at a time when the art of building paved (stone)
Roman roads had been lost. The main road through
Old Windsor, UK, is called "Straight Road", and it is straight where it carries that name. Many streets with regular nouns rather than proper nouns, are somehow related to that noun. For example, Station Street or Station Road, do connect to a railway station, and many "Railway Streets" or similar do end at, cross or parallel a railway.
Destination Many roads are given the name of the place to which they lead, while others bear the names of distant, seemingly unrelated cities. As a road approaches its stated destination, its name may be changed. Hartford Avenue in
Wethersfield, Connecticut, becomes Wethersfield Avenue in
Hartford, Connecticut, for example. A road can switch names multiple times as local opinion changes regarding its destination: for example, the road between
Oxford and
Banbury changes name five times from the
Banbury Road to the Oxford Road and back again as it passes through villages. Some streets are named after the areas that the street connects. For example, Clarcona Ocoee Road links the communities of Clarcona and Ocoee in
Orlando, Florida, and Jindivick–Neerim South Road links the towns of Jindivick and
Neerim South in
Victoria, Australia. Some roads are named after their general direction, such as "
Great North Road".
Bypasses are often named after the town they route traffic around, for example the
Newbury bypass.
Distinguished or famous individuals Some streets are named after famous or distinguished individuals, sometimes people directly associated with the street, usually after their deaths. Bucharest's
Şoseaua Kiseleff was named after the Russian reformer
Pavel Kiselyov who had the road built while Russian troops were occupying the city in the 1830s; its Strada Dr. Iuliu Barasch is named after a locally famous physician whose clinic was located there. Many streets named after
saints are named because they lead to, or are adjacent to,
churches dedicated to them. Naming a street after oneself as a bid for
immortality has a long pedigree:
Jermyn Street in
London was named by
Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St Albans, who developed the
St. James's area for
Charles II of England. Perhaps to dissuade such posterity-seeking, many jurisdictions only allow naming for persons after their death, occasionally with a waiting period of ten years or more. A dozen streets in
San Francisco's
North Beach neighborhood were renamed in 1988 after deceased local writers; in 1994, the city broke with tradition, honoring
Lawrence Ferlinghetti by renaming an alley after the poet within his own lifetime. Naming a street for a person is very common in many countries, often in the honorand's birthplace. However, it is also the most controversial type of naming, especially in cases of renaming. Two main reasons streets are renamed are: (1) to
commemorate a person who lived or worked in that area (for example, Avenue
Victor Hugo in
Paris, where he resided); or (2) to associate a prominent street in a city after an admired major historical figure even with no specific connection to the locale (for example,
René Lévesque Boulevard in
Montreal, formerly Dorchester Boulevard). Similarly, hundreds of roads in the United States
were named with variations of Martin Luther King Jr., in the years after his 1968
assassination. Conversely, renaming can be a way to eliminate a name that proves too controversial. For example,
Hamburg Avenue in
Brooklyn, New York became
Wilson Avenue after the United States entered
World War I against
Germany (see below). In
Riverside, California, a short, one-way street named Wong Way was renamed to a more respectful Wong Street, as well as spelled out in Chinese characters to honor the historical Chinatown that once occupied the area. In a case of a street named after a living person becoming controversial,
Lech Wałęsa Street in San Francisco was renamed to
Dr. Tom Waddell Place in 2014 after Wałęsa made a public remark against
gay people holding major public office. Way is unveiled in New York City in 2023 at the corner of
Mott Street and
Mosco Street Lettered and numbered streets There are public benefits to having easily understood systems of orderly street names, such as in sequences: • A Street,
B Street, C Street, and so on, ending with Z Street. • Cities using the full sequence from A Street to Z Street include
Dallas, Texas and others.
Sacramento, California's system goes only up to Y Street. • The
system of lettered street-naming for Washington, D.C. notably includes lettered streets with exceptions that there is no "J Street" and no "X" "Y" or "Z" streets. The omission of J street was due to lack of distinction between I and J in writing practices at the time. • Avenue A, Avenue B, Avenue C, etc. • In Brooklyn, there are streets with letter names (or formerly bearing letter names), or places where such streets would be:
List of lettered Brooklyn avenues. • The
Antelope Valley has a similar system, but with streets in between (e.g. Avenue J-8) taking the name of the first avenue to their north, and suffixed with a number for how many sixteenths of a mile south they are. For example, Avenue J-8 is 8/16 mile (1/2 mile) south of Avenue J. • Ash St., Bash St., Cash St., Dash St., etc. (one-syllable names in alphabetical order) • Asher St., Basher St., Casher St., Dasher St., etc. (two-syllable names) • Asherly, Bemington, Cashburton, Deskowton, etc. (three-syllable names). A 1950
American Planning Association report supports use of these systems.
Other themes Groups of streets in one area are sometimes named using a particular theme. One example is
Philadelphia, where the major east–west streets in
William Penn's original plan for the city carry the names of trees: from north to south, these were Vine, Sassafras, Mulberry, High (not a tree), Chestnut, Walnut, Locust, Spruce, Pine, Lombard and Cedar. (Sassafras, Mulberry, High and Cedar have since been renamed to Race, Arch, Market [the main east–west street downtown] and South.) Other examples of themed streets: • In
Washington, D.C., each of the 50 U.S. states has a street named after it (such as
Pennsylvania Avenue, which runs from the
Capitol to the White House). Most of the "state avenues" cross diagonally through the alphabetic and numbered streets in Washington's grid (see
grid systems below). • In an area of
northwest Portland, Oregon, streets are in alphabetical order and are named after important local businessmen and pioneers. The names date back to 1892 when they replaced an alphabetical lettering system. A portion of the area, known as the
Alphabet Historic District, is zoned for historic preservation and was added to the
National Register of Historic Places in 2000. • In the area of
Puerto Madero,
Buenos Aires,
Argentina, streets are named after important women. • Themed street names are very common in
Guadalajara,
Mexico with names including: • Constellations and astronomers in La Calma and Arboledas. • Rivers and mountain ranges in Las Águilas (Sierra de Pihuamo, Río Verde...) • Aztec places, people and gods in Ciudad del Sol (Axayácatl, Cuauhtémoc, Popocatépetl, Anáhuac...) • World cities in Providencia. • Hispanic writers and intellectuals in Ladrón de Guevara and nearby areas. • Flowers in downhill Bugambilias, animals uphill. • Classical artists in La Estancia (Hector Berlioz, Rafael Sanzio, Johann Sebastian Bach...) • International writers in Jardines Vallarta. • Mexican isles near El Sauz. • Countries in Colonia Moderna (Francia, España, Alemania...) •
Tucson, Arizona has streets and avenues, but roads that run diagonally are called "Stravenues". •
Denver, Colorado's north–south streets alternate names in alphabetical order throughout the entire city; for example Albion-Ash-Bellaire-Birch-Clermont-Cherry-Dexter-Dahlia going west–east on the city's east side. (In this double alphabet grouping, the first alphabet is Scottish-themed and the second alphabet is botanically themed.) Alternately, going east–west has the same effect; for example Acoma-Bannock-Cherokee-Delaware-Elati-Fox etc. (Exceptions do exist.) Other themes exist in the city, such as university names (Yale and Dartmouth Avenues) and presidential names (Garfield and Washington Streets). These two common themes are found in many other cities as well, such as
Hemet,
California, and
Torrance, California, respectively. •
Redondo Beach, California, has a series of approximately alphabetical gemstone names (Beryl, Carnelian, Diamond, etc.) for streets crossing
Pacific Coast Highway. • Two
Florida cities have streets named after American presidents:
Hollywood, and
Cape Canaveral. in New Orleans • In
New Orleans,
Louisiana, some streets of the historic
French Quarter are named for royal houses of France. Many who visit this neighborhood mistake
Bourbon Street to be named after
the beverage that many of the street's famous revelers are drinking, while it is actually named after the
House of Bourbon, the ruling dynasty of
France when the city was built. Similarly, Burgundy Street was named for the
House of Burgundy •
Harrow in London, famous for its
public school, has an estate where all the roads are named after former teachers at the school. • The
Toxteth area of
Liverpool has '
Welsh Streets', a series of streets named after Welsh places, including
Rhiwlas St, Gwydir St,
Powis St and Madryn Street, where
Beatles drummer
Ringo Starr grew up. These streets were refurbished during 2017. •
Worcester has a Canadian themed area with streets named after large cities, provinces, and other locations.
Leicester has one area named after
nuts;
Filbert Street was the home of
Leicester City F.C. between 1891 and 2002. •
Leicester also has a series of terraced streets with the names Hawthorne, Alma, Rowan, Ruby, Ivanhoe, Sylvan, Oban, and Newport - the first letter making the name "Harrison" - after the builder. The streets all run into Beatrice Road - named for the builder's wife. • In
Brossard, Quebec,
Red Deer, Alberta and
Brampton, Ontario, different sections of the town all have streets starting with the same letter; in Brampton, the alphabetical order reflects chronology.
Laval, Quebec has an area named for birds;
Kirkland, Quebec has an area named after wines.
Mississauga, Ontario,
Markham, Ontario, and
Winston-Salem, North Carolina all have areas named for the characters in
Robin Hood. • Themed names are popular in suburban subdivisions. The subdivision or suburban town may itself give the name of the theme, such as
Anjou, Quebec (ex: main street named for
René of Anjou, king of Naples) and
Lorraine, Quebec (streets all named for towns in eastern France, main street named for
Charles de Gaulle, due to his association with the
Cross of Lorraine). • In the
Philippines, streets in the South Triangle district of
Quezon City were named to commemorate the
Boy Scouts that were among the casualties on
United Arab Airlines Flight 869 (1963) on their way to the
11th World Scout Jamboree. Streets in
Sampaloc, Manila are named after the various books and characters in the works of
Jose Rizal. • Street names in
Canberra typically follow a particular theme: the streets of
Duffy are named after Australian dams and weirs, the streets of
Page are named after biologists and naturalists, and the streets of
Gowrie are named after Australian recipients of the
Victoria Cross. Latham, named for
John Greig Latham, a High Court Justice, has streets named for prominent Australian high court judges. Florey, named for
Howard Florey who refined the use of penicillin, has streets named for scientists and physicians. •
Almere in the
Netherlands, a planned city founded in 1976, is separated into themed sections. Streets in the city's business district are named for occupations (merchant, poet, real estate agent). Streets in other neighborhoods are named for musical instruments, actors, film directors, islands, months of the year, days of the week, rock stars (
Rolling Stones,
Jimi Hendrix), fruits, electronics (transistor, microphone, television), and even Dutch comic-book characters. Themed street names are also very common in all other
Dutch towns and cities. It is rare to find non-themed neighborhoods built after 1900 in the Netherlands. • Nearly all of the streets in
Leeton, Australia, were named after plants. • The neighborhood of
Cerak Vinogradi in
Belgrade, Serbia, has streets named exclusively by the tree species that lines the street: Ash, Linden, Cedar, etc. The only non-tree place name is that of the central green space, "Trg (Square of) S.C. Babovic", though it lacks any signs with the name. •
Street names in Iceland usually have a second element in common throughout a neighborhood. Examples include neighborhoods where the themes are the names of early settlers, ending with
–gata (street); and then more nature-oriented ones where the second part is
–smári (clover) or
–gerði (hedge) with the first part being chosen for alphabetic order. •
San Francisco has five partial alphabets of parallel streets. Three of these series form the grid in the Bayview district (the series Griffith ... Upton crosses the double series Arthur ... Yosemite, Armstrong ... Meade). Another (Anza ... Yorba) crosses the numbered Avenues in the Richmond and Sunset districts, which together are sometimes called "The Avenues". The fourth is the north–south streets of the Sunnyside district (Acadia ... Genesee). San Francisco also has a series of numbered Streets in the Mission and South-of-Market districts. •
Grantham,
England: one estate in the northeast of the town has most of its streets named after famous
golf courses of the
British Isles. The estate itself is named after the middle section of a golf hole. • The west side of
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, has avenues that go from A to Z, although the majority of Avenue A was renamed to Idylwyld Drive. Although it was not officially named, Witney Avenue in the
Meadowgreen and
Mount Royal neighborhoods has been unofficially dubbed Avenue Z since it is the last street which runs parallel to Avenue Y. • In
Gander, Newfoundland, every street is named after a pilot, honoring the town's aviation history. •
Downtown Memphis, Tennessee, has five main avenues named after the first five presidents: Washington (northernmost), Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe (southernmost). These streets were laid out in the original plan of Memphis in the early 1820s, shortly after the election of the sixth president
John Quincy Adams. (The series was not continued with a second Adams Avenue.) • Downtown of
Ljubljana,
Slovenia, has a grid system of roads and
Ljubljanica river banks named after famous Slovenian writers, poems or artists, such as
France Prešeren and
Ivan Cankar. A neighbourhood named Murgle (in Southern Vič district) contains a street naming system based on names of trees planted on sides of the streets, e.g. Under Maples, Under Oaks and Under Willows. • In
Palo Alto, California, streets in the
College Terrace neighborhood (which borders the
Stanford University campus) are named after distinguished colleges and universities. The streets running north–south start at the westernmost end of the neighborhood alphabetically: Amherst, Bowdoin, Columbia, and Dartmouth. After Dartmouth, the streets do not follow the alphabet (except for the last streets, Wellesley, Williams, and Yale): Hanover, Harvard, Oberlin, Princeton, and Cornell. The backbone of the neighborhood running west–east is College Avenue, and the northernmost street, Stanford Avenue also runs west–east. • In
Garfield Heights, Ohio, there is a tree theme with streets named Oak Park Drive, Shady Oak Blvd, Woodward Blvd, Eastwood Blvd, Oakview Blvd, and Maple Leaf Drive. • Streets in the suburb of Chapelford in
Warrington, England take their names from US place names, centering on Boston Boulevard and including Michigan Place, Orlando Drive and Portland Road. This theme was chosen as this suburb has been built over most of the former
RAF Burtonwood site and the surrounding area. This airbase was used extensively by the
USAAF during the Second World War and was once the largest airfield in Europe. • In
Palm Coast, Florida, nearly the entire city is divided into "alphabet letter" neighborhoods. The northernmost neighborhood has all "L" street names, whether the street runs north–south or east–west (Ex. Lakeview Blvd, Lancelot Drive, Lancaster Lane, Linnet Way). Other neighborhoods consist of only "B" (Bird of Paradise Dr, Belle Terre Pkwy, Bickwick Ln), "F" (Fellowship Dr, Forest Grove Dr, Fircrest Ln), "C" (Curry Ct, Colorado Dr, Colechester Ln), "P" (Parkview Dr, Prairie Ln, Pacific Dr), "W" (Wellington Dr, Williams Dr, Waters Ct), and "R" (Rymfire Dr, Ravenwood Dr, Royal Tern Ln) street names. • In
Warley, Brentwood, Essex, a fairly recent development has street names themed around English composer
Ralph Vaughan Williams; the main road running through the development aptly named "Vaughan Williams Way", with examples of smaller roads on the estate named "Lark Close" and "Tallis Way" after the composer's works "
The Lark Ascending" and "
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis", respectively. • A large housing estate in the City of
Wolverhampton, England was built upon the former
Goodyear Tyre complex; each phase has a theme related to that history. In one, the streets are named after the
Goodyear Blimps (Enterprise, Europa etc.), and in another for racetracks where Goodyear Tyres were prevalent (Mallory, Donington, Rockingham etc.). • In
Austin, Texas, the north-to-south Streets were named for major Texas rivers following the order as they generally appeared on Texas maps in the 1830s, with the exception being Congress, which runs up to the
Texas State Capital (itself named for the pre-statehood
Republic of Texas's
Congress), and additional streets being named for smaller rivers. Streets running east-to-west are actually shown as either numbered streets, trees found in the state, or sometimes both, on various maps from the city's founding up into the mid-20th century. There is no good historical information as to why eventually the tree names were dropped in favor of numbered streets, but the tree names live on in various festivals, business names, and landmarks.
Grid-based naming systems and East
57th Street in New York City In many cities laid out on a
grid plan, the streets are named to indicate their location on a
Cartesian coordinate plane. For example, the
Commissioners' Plan of 1811 for
Manhattan provided for numbered streets running parallel to the minor axis of the island and numbered and lettered avenues running parallel to the long axis of the island, although many of the avenues have since been assigned names for at least part of their courses. In the city plan for
Washington, D.C., north–south streets were numbered away from the
United States Capitol in both directions, while east–west streets were lettered away from the Capitol in both directions and diagonal streets were named after various States of the Union. As the city grew, east–west streets past W Street were given two-syllable names in alphabetical order, then three-syllable names in alphabetical order, and finally names relating to flowers and shrubs in alphabetical order. Even in communities not laid out on a grid, such as
Arlington County, Virginia, a grid-based naming system is still sometimes used. Often, the
numbered streets run east–west and the numbered avenues north–south, following the style adopted in Manhattan, although this is not always observed. In some cases, streets in "half-blocks" in between two consecutive numbered streets have a different designator, such as Court or Terrace, often in an organized system where courts are always between streets and terraces between avenues. Sometimes yet another designator (such as "Way", "Place", or "Circle") is used for streets which go at a diagonal or curve around, and hence do not fit easily in the grid. In many cases, the
block numbers correspond to the numbered cross streets; for instance, an address of 1600 may be near 16th Street or 16th Avenue. In a city with both lettered and numbered streets, such as Washington, D.C., the 400 block may be between 4th and 5th streets or between D and E streets, depending on the direction in which the street in question runs. However, addresses in Manhattan have no obvious relationship to cross streets or avenues, although various tables and formulas are often found on maps and travel guides to assist in finding addresses. Examples of : • In
Denver, Colorado, all roads running east–west are given "Avenue" designations, while those running north–south are given "Street" designations. Sometimes, additional designations are given based on physical characteristics of the road (for example, 6th Avenue Parkway and Monaco Street Parkway both contain large medians consisting of trees and walkways). Denver carries numbered Avenues north of Ellsworth, the center of the address system in Denver. Broadway carries alphabetical streets east and west. For example, 100 North Broadway is at First Avenue and Broadway. Alternately, 100 West Ellsworth is at Ellsworth and Acoma Street. • In
Salt Lake City, Utah, the road system is generally based on the headquarters of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Salt Lake City is also known to have a number-based naming system. For example, one may find the address of a local store at 4570 South 4000 West, where 4000 West (or 40th West) is the name of the street and 4570 is the number on the building. This means the store is approximately 45 blocks south and 40 blocks west of the LDS temple. Similar
Cartesian coordinate systems are used in other Utah cities and towns. Some towns in
Indiana follow the same practice, as do many cities and towns in eastern
Idaho. • The
Chicago, Illinois, grid system extends throughout the entire city and into some of its suburbs. It divides the city into four quadrants, with the zero point being the intersection of
State Street (0 E/W) and
Madison Street (0 N/S) in the
"Loop". All streets bear a directional prefix indicating their position relative to State and Madison, which is never omitted when writing an address (and rarely in speech). "Blocks", which have a range of 100 numbers, are approximately mile long (except between Madison and 31st Streets, where blocks are slightly shorter, given a three-mile distance between the streets). Many neighborhoods have intermediate blocks at mile intervals as well. The most important streets occur every mile (i.e., every 800 numbers), with secondary streets at half-mile intervals. North–south streets are always named, while east–west streets are named on the North Side and numbered on the South Side. Most City of Chicago residents know at least a few of the major streets and their grid positions (i.e., North Avenue = 1600 N, Cicero Avenue = 4800 W). Thus addresses in Chicago are commonly given two ways: in Cartesian coordinates (3400 North, 2800 West) or as number and name (3324 North California), with the expectation that the nearest cross street, or at least the distance from State Street or Madison Streets can be appropriately deduced from the address number (i.e., 3324 N = slightly more than 4 miles north of State and Madison Streets). Diagonal streets are given directional suffixes based on whether their angle is more vertical or more horizontal, and their numbering corresponds with the rest of the grid. • In
Detroit, Michigan, and the suburbs to the north, major roads were generally built every mile, and many of the east–west roads are numbered in the
Mile Road System based on their distance from the start of Michigan Avenue. These roads are named with "Mile Road", from 5 Mile to 37 Mile. Addresses in much of the area are counted from the beginning of Woodward Avenue in Detroit, with roughly 2000 addresses assigned per mile, not coinciding with the Mile Road numbers; for instance, 8 Mile is the 20700 block, not 800 or 8000. • In
Melbourne's Central Business District, the streets were laid out in what has become known as the
Hoddle Grid. It is 1 mile long by 0.5 miles wide (1.6 km by 0.8 km.) The major streets are 1.5 chains wide (30m) and halfway between the city's major thoroughfares that run parallel to the
Yarra River are the "little" streets. These streets share the same name as the major street to the south (Flinders St, Flinders Lane; Collins Street, Little Collins Street; Bourke Street, Little Bourke Street; Lonsdale Street, Little Lonsdale Street; and finally La Trobe Street) and are only half a chain wide. This forces them to be one-way streets, but they allow each city block to be exactly 10 chains square. == By country ==