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.

There's also Crapstone and Shitterton ...

And Lunt. The villagers wanted to officially change the spelling of the name to Launt, with the 'a' being silent so the pronunciation remains the same - just to deter people from constantly adding a horizontal line to the sign.

I always assumed the tales about all of the Scots hating all of the English were nothing more than ridiculous myths, but after I drove through Orkney and they had already gone to the trouble to put up a fake village sign, just for the purposes of insulting me, I'm not so sure now....

The Parish Council do it here.

New streets are named after the old names for the local fields that have long since gone. The historical society did a lot of research into it several years ago. The newest street was named after a local councillor who served the community for 40 odd years who died not long ago.

I have to say I like the fact they are trying to tie the past to the future and it has meaning for the local community.

@FromDespairToHere

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!

This sounds very familiar!!

When I was a councillor we were often asked what we wanted to call roads , often the builders / developers put forward suggestions , and the surnames of local people who had been well known were often used as names

Maybe drifting too far OT, but does anyone else share my vague unease at places being named after living people (her madge excepted) ?

@DGRossetti

Maybe drifting too far OT, but does anyone else share my vague unease at places being named after living people (her madge excepted) ?

Yes! There is a Queen Elizabeth Drive near me which is full of really ugly flats and the residents are mostly of the unsavoury variety. Constant crime there. Each building of flats is named after royals too. So for instance Margaret House, Charles House etc. Built around 50 years ago and they are in a truly awful state

My cousin was a GP in a town and died aged 50 there is a road named after him which I really like.

Maybe drifting too far OT, but does anyone else share my vague unease at places being named after living people (her madge excepted) ?

It's certainly a risk. Even after they've been dead for a few years, you don't know what might come out of the woodwork. Even if you're not a wrong'un (especially if you're not a wrong'un), you'd likely feel very uncomfortable driving down a road named after you whilst you're still alive (not that you would be driving there when you're dead....). Well, I certainly would.

That said, I rather think that Brian Clough would have been quite content to drive down the section of the A52 named after him and, unlike most of us, rather than feeling a little embarrassed and uneasy about it, would have been straight on the phone to demand to know why it wasn't the whole of the M1!!

There’s an arguments yard in Whitby. I’d love to know the story behind that.

There’s an arguments yard in Whitby. I’d love to know the story behind that.

Ah, yes - wonderfully quirky little thoroughfare.

Just a hunch, but you'll probably find more than one story behind it - all staunchly conflicting, of course

Apparently, the reality is not quite so exciting and sadly doesn't refer to multiple big historical bust-ups at all: www.corcottagewhitby.co.uk/history.html

Even after they've been dead for a few years, you don't know what might come out of the woodwork.

Hadn't thought of that. Imagine living in Savile Row ?

Imagine living in Savile Row ?

That very street had actually crossed my mind. Probably best to just stick to their surname - then you can always claim that it was named in honour of a 16th Century Tring 13yo milkmaid even though the road is in Paisley and absolutely definitely most certainly not the (now in)famous villain who just happens to share the same name!

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Imagine living in Savile Row ?

That very street had actually crossed my mind. Probably best to just stick to their surname - then you can always claim that it was named in honour of a 16th Century Tring 13yo milkmaid even though the road is in Paisley and absolutely definitely most certainly not the (now in)famous villain who just happens to share the same name!

Not the one I was thinking of ...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savile_Row

You don't live in a village in NW England do you? Just outside one of the W towns!

Thank you for that @WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll somewhat disappointing

You say that themed road names is a modern thing, but near me is are Cecil, Derby and Rosebery roads. They are lesser known prime ministers of the late Victorian era. Though the houses are more 1920s.

Milton Keynes is virtually all new build estates, over the last 50 years, so lots of different themes around the place. The council actually has a list of them somewhere on its website. On mine all the streets have island names, though it's rather an eclectic mix of windswept remote British islands and small tropical paradises.

Recently got lost on a different estate and found a street named after my lovely hometown, so now trying to work out how we can move there!

@KindergartenKop

You say that themed road names is a modern thing, but near me is are Cecil, Derby and Rosebery roads. They are lesser known prime ministers of the late Victorian era. Though the houses are more 1920s.

There's a project for a school class - see if you can identify any historical celebrity themed areas of town ....

Along with bad people who DO get roads named after them and their creations, there are plenty of well-known good eggs who don't - and sometimes, the locals are left with no option but to redress this balance themselves.

My relative has a road named after him. Unfortunately he also had a surname that can be pronounced more than one way and I bet most of the residents say (for example) Bucket Avenue rather than Bouquet Avenue. Which kind of defeats the object.

I live somewhere that has two, separate, tree estates. Different tree names for roads, but two distinct areas built at different times. How unimaginative!

And the airfield development referred to by a PP also has a three closes not built at the same time as the majority which are not named after planes or pilots - Peel, Anthony and Constable. Now that's weird as even the roads built recently have aviation names.

Anthony = Anthian

@PolkadotsAndMoonbeams

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.

My DH has family who live on an oxford colleges estate. There is balliol, oriel, magdalen. Actually come to think of it I know another in a different area too. Although magdalen is pronounced phonetically in both cases and not maudlin

I know of roads which are named after poets and known as "the poets" and another set after flowers. Ironically the flower roads are very urban with very little green space or flowers so not the image you expect from the name