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.

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.

Some of our friends live in an area where the roads are all named after famous poets. One of them is named after Edmund Spenser, though, which nobody ever seems to get right - even the residents tend to assume that it was a spelling mistake or something and 'correct' it whenever they use it.

I do often think that, when you get new road names that are very unusual - or sound obvious but aren't - you're setting the residents up for a lifetime of having to spell it out every single time - the same as with a lot of baby names, where the child grows up thinking their name is actually 'Jaxxon-thats-with-two-xs-not-ck'. Elm Drive or Church Road might be boring, but at least you never have to repeat or spell them out.

There's both Willey Broom and Jackass Lanes around here.

@SockQueen Milton Keynes itself is named after Milton and Keynes!

[quote KindergartenKop]@SockQueen Milton Keynes itself is named after Milton and Keynes![/quote]
Hate to be pedantic, but it actually doesn't (though is a common misconception). Milton Keynes village was one of the small villages in the area which became incorporated into the "new city" (alongside Bletchley, Wolverton etc) and gave it its name. The village has been around for centuries, though is now just a small part of one of the grid squares of the city.

*isn't, not doesn't.

Besides, although both Milton and Keynes are well known in their own right, there's no connection between the two and they have no connection to the area, so it would be an odd choice!

Milton Keynes itself is named after Milton and Keynes!

Does anybody else remember the Bob & Margaret episode where there are adverts urging people to move to the fantastic new town: Wordsworth Shakespeare?!

@SockQueen oh no! Urban myth, sorry

There is a Worlds End Road in my neighbourhood 😉

The new estate Iv moved to are all named after the soldiers on the ww1 plaque at our local church.

Gregor Drive
James Avenue
Hillier crescent etc

@greengrey

I drove down Minge Lane today.

I'd like to think it was named when the word meant something else!

In Upton upon Severn?

I thought roads on new estates were named after the habitat they flattened. Eg orchard close or the meadows.

My DH owns a house building company.
They have a department that deals with street names. They work with the LA.
Street Names are usually something personal to the development on which they are built.

Royal names have to get the Queen’s personal approval 👑

The one that always seemed wrong to me was Walnut Tree Close in Guildford.
It sounds like a lovely tree lined cul-de-sac but it’s actually a long straight road with mainly industrial units.

We bought a new build which was supposed to be say Walnut Close. Some of the other streets were supposed to be along the lines of Walnut Drive, Walnut Avenue, you get the picture. However when it came to it for some reason the street names were rejected and so the entire section of new builds were tagged onto an existing street. Between the new builds were individually built houses spaced about so it ended up with some of the new builds being for example 36a Smith Street, 77b Smith Street. As well as this the numbers didn't flow right at all so say we lived at number 68 Smith Street, we were nowhere near 67 or 69 at all. Endless delivery drivers would find 67 Smith Street which was on the corner then drive down into the cul de sac only to be met with 69, 71, 73, 75 etc this carried on into the 100s. We were on a completely different street which was not obvious at all!

In a village near me there's a First Avenue and a Second Avenue. I mean, come on! A little imagination here would be nice!

@PleaseReferToMeAsBritneySpears

In a village near me there's a First Avenue and a Second Avenue. I mean, come on! A little imagination here would be nice!

New York seems to cope

7th and Broadway ...

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll when I was a teenager back in the day, I would have sold my mother to move to Nottingham so I could live in Torvill Drive or Dean Close. I was So Jealous of people living on those roads