Word on the Street

My sweet ride, The Bike, was recently tuned and consequently I’ve been peddling madly all over town. It is actually faster to bike in Toronto than take the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission), and though you have to dodge streetcars and crazy drivers it is my favourite way of traveling.

Yesterday, on a biking adventure to visit my niece Emma, I noticed some very interesting streets which made me ponder the naming process. After doing some research I’ve discovered that there is a lot more to street names than meets the eye. It seems that many history books geared towards a city’s past focuses at least a section to street naming history.

According to University of Haifa student Yoram Bar-Gal, “two important factors characterized the history of naming streets in Tel-Aviv: the decision-makers and the principles that guided them”. Bar-Gal goes onto explain that city officials in Tel-Aviv wanted to culturally differentiate their city from Jaffa and this underlying principal was the guiding force in choosing names. The article “Naming city streets – A chapter in the history of Tel-Aviv, 1909-1947” provides some great insight into the fact that “political and historical processes” and cultural characteristics play a huge role in city planning and street names. I suppose this makes sense as great people, fallen heroes, and notable historical events are often honoured with their own streets.

As a native Montrealer, I can attest to the fact that culture and history were combined with religion to make way for the hundreds of “Saint-Somthing” streets. Most people of French and Irish lineage are Catholic and since these two ethnicities make up a large percentage of Montreal’s inhabitants the downtown core is riddled with religious undertones; Saint Catherine, St. Jacques, St. Laurent, St. Denis, and so on. It’s amazing the Montreal is known as Canada’s Sin City – shocking that Montrealers feel at ease doing anything “bad” with all those saints breathing down their neck.

One of the articles I read online summarizes the history of street naming in North America quite well. Here are some interesting points:

• Early on, streets were named after landmarks (Church, Canal), geographical attributes (North, Hill), and important people (King, Queen)
• A shift to naming streets after nature later took place (trees, flowers, etc).
• Surnames then became widely used (sometimes after the people who developed the area)
• Around 1880 streets were replaced with avenues
• An architectural revolution in the early 1900’s made way for eloquent boulevards, monuments, vistas, and colonnades
• After WWI when cars became more widely used avenue was replaced with drive. Suburbia was sought after by most people and suffixes such as “land” and “wood” were often used.
• Over the later half of the 1900’s personal names, famous colleges and universities, and English counties were used as inspiration in naming streets.

All this being said, I have a top 5 list of street names I’ve seen here in Toronto. In no particular order:

1.) Don Jail Roadway
2.) Ladykirk Avenue
3.) Avenue Road
4.) McGee Street (those of you who know about my love for the term “Tubs McGee” will appreciate this one)
5.) Strange Street

I found a funny site online with the weirdest street names. Here are some of my favourites:

1.) Little Schmuck Road
2.) Liquid Loco Road
3.) Farfrompoopen Road
4.) Cannibal Lane
5.) Turkey Cock Lane

What are some of the best street names you’ve seen? Do you feel that certain limitations should be applied to choosing a name (length of character, controversial people, etc)?

If you’re interested in reading more, here are some of the articles I read:

Toronto Street Names: An Illustrated Guide to Their Origins (Firefly Books, ISBN: 1552093867)

History of Street Names and Street Naming in North America (http://potifos.com/streetname.html)

Naming city streets – A chapter in the history of Tel-Aviv, 1909-1947 (Springer Netherlands, ISSN: 0147-1694 (Print) 1876-5165 (Online)