Who chooses new road names?

[LudoBear]

I'm fascinated by road names especially when they are an obvious theme. Example I used to live near Zodiac Road and off it were starsigns like Capricorn Way and Sagittarius Drive. Thankfully no Cancer Road though.

Who chooses road names? Some are obvious like School Lane but there is a Merrylegs Road not far from me.

@VienneseWhirligig

My FIL had a block of council flats named after him (surname) - he was an engineer for the council and the flats were named after members of staff who had long service that year.

DH used to be a project manager from the council and was well known for wanting things to be 100% right, along with his colleague. They didn't name a street after him, but during a snagging on one particular house, where the plumbing hadn't been right and they had insisted it removed and start again, they were told that behind the bathroom wall tiles was the words 'Mr Adobe & his Colleague are TWATS" DH seemed rather proud of that. Imagine he'd have burst if they named the street for him 😂

Last year I was chatting to a newly elected town councillor (small market town) and she said when builders proposed names for new developments the council got out a list of names they already had.

When looking down the list she pointed out ALL of the approved names were of various minor local worthies both past and present and surprise surprise the were all men !

The list is now being changed

I grew up in Harrow - the bit that was built in the 30s. There were a few themes in street names ...

Dunster
Widdecombe*
Exeter
Leamington
Malvern
Waverley
Torbay
Lynton
Exeter

then nearby there were streets ...

Aragon
Boleyn
Cleves
Cramner

I wonder if there are estates with band references ?

Lennon Road
McCartney Close
Starr Street
Harrison Crescent

You know the rude names are ancient from when the words meant something else. I've never heard of a local contest to name any of the roads on new estates. That possibility seems to be kept very quiet.

How can I live in Norfolk & there are so few Ketts Lanes?

@lljkk

You know the rude names are ancient from when the words meant something else. I've never heard of a local contest to name any of the roads on new estates. That possibility seems to be kept very quiet.

How can I live in Norfolk & there are so few Ketts Lanes?

We have a Bell End in Worcestershire.

Anything London can do, we can do as well, you know.

When I was young I lived within a mile of a CortexFirstName Road leading into CortexLastName Crescent. I was convinced my parents had just stuck a pin in the map when naming me.

I grew up on an estate where every Street/Road/Drive/Square was named after a woman. It's believed they were the wives of the planners/councillors, so immortalised for being married to men, rather than in their own right.
We used to think the names were amusingly old fashioned, in the 70s and 80s; now they're the names of my children's school friends - Elizabeth, Cora, Edith, Eva and Dorothy.
Bertha, Hilda and Doris, not so much!

@DGRossetti we have a lot of dodgy names in Worcestershire! Best Mans Lane, Hangmans Lane, Hornyold Road, Minge Lane etc.

[quote LudoBear]@DGRossetti we have a lot of dodgy names in Worcestershire! Best Mans Lane, Hangmans Lane, Hornyold Road, Minge Lane etc.[/quote]
Not really doing much to dispel my deep distrust of things rural

Used to drive past a "Dogpool Lane" quite a bit. Nothing at all funny in that.

I had a friend who lived on a street in an estate that had been named after some local councillor or other (or more likely wife thereof), but it was such a random name it sounded totally bizarre as a street name.

Her address was along the lines of "17 Janette Tompkinson Crescent". I don't actually think I could move into a house on that street.

A local rugby club is on Cutthroat lane, and there is a small cul-de-sac called Ultra Close which always makes me laugh

Where I learned to drive we often practiced parallel parking on an estate that was all Cambridge colleges. I often wondered if there was a similar one with Oxford colleges somewhere.

A new estate near me is named after a local councillor who died a couple of years ago. She spent most of her time campaigning against having new houses built in our village. I would love to know if someone genuinely didn't know this or if they are actually taking the piss!

Where I live there is an area called Poet's Corner where all the street names are of poets- Tennyson, Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth, Herrick.

There’s a bad bargain lane in my home town
I often wonder if someone got a raw deal on the land
There is also a thief lane about 30 seconds from my parents-they would lead them down from there to be hanged
There is also mad Alice lane-I wonder how mad she was to be remembered forever as mad Alice

@GreenHairThingy I think I know where you live!

@always2ndbest I don't live on the aforementioned streets, I'm vair posh 😉😂

I read that a builder in Chichester had almost missed the deadline for naming some new streets. Then a Stanton and Staveley van pulled into the estate. They make drains and pipes. So the builder picked those names for two of the streets. There is a Stanton Drive and a Staveley Gardens.

I grew up on an estate named after various characters/features from Robin Hood. It was built in the fifties... And was nowhere near Nottinghamshire.

There's an area which, granted, is in Nottingham - I'm guessing developed in the mid 80s - but the person naming the roads was clearly a big fan of the local ice-skating superheroes. I may not be remembering completely accurately, but they had something like Jane Road, Torvill Road, Christopher Road, Dean Road, Sarajevo Drive, Bolero Avenue etc. Two neighbouring roads - one road each bearing their full name or just surname would have been a lovely tribute, but I found myself irrationally irritated (I was driving around looking for a nursing home) and seething "OK, we get the point!"

One of my absolute favourites has to be Letsby Avenue in Sheffield, which is where the police station is!

I'm sure it's got some great historical meaning and wasn't just the result of somebody smoking a lot of very special herbs in the 60s, but Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate - a long name for a teeny weeny little road in York - has to win some sort of a prize!

we have a lot of dodgy names in Worcestershire! Best Mans Lane, Hangmans Lane, Hornyold Road, Minge Lane etc.

I'm personally deeply hurt that you didn't see it necessary to mention Mearse Lane and Twatling Road, both in a small village near the Birmingham border. Obviously named after, respectively, Ricky Tomlinson and the irritating local councillor whom nobody could stand, but to whom they nevertheless promised to pay due tribute

Used to drive past a "Dogpool Lane" quite a bit. Nothing at all funny in that.

Local volunteers work to a round-the-clock rota to ensure that the final letter is instantly painted over again every time the last lot of paint is scrubbed off by the council

I live on a street named after a bird and all the streets nearby are bird names also. I love it.

Round the corner is place related names such as Wight Avenue and Anglesey Drive (I've changed the street types to throw off any potential weirdos haha)

Some names are cute.

There’s a Pocket Handkerchief Lane near me.
And I’ve seen Honeypot Lane.

I wish they'd make it illegal to use the same name but with different endings in one area. Acacia Road, leading to Acacia Avenue, next to Acacia Street, which is just a pebble's throw from Acacia Lane gets exceedingly confusing - and you constantly get each other's post when the postman reads '19 Acacia....' and then just picks any of the Acacia thoroughfares at random.

I wonder if there are any roads out there that were named in honour of a local/national luminary who subsequently fell so far from grace, it was utterly untenable to keep the name?

There is a Station Avenue near me. It's a about 300 meters long behind an office tower block without so much as a house or tree on it leading to the station carpark. Not really sure why it was named or given such a strange name for the type of road. Station Approach would have been much more fitting.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butt_Hole_Road