How are road names allocated?

[Telstarbox]

I don't think they get many completely new streets, but Westminster CC have quite strict rules for using Crescent, Grove etc. They also don't allow developers to "miss out" the no 13 or other unlucky numbers.

https://www.westminster.gov.uk/street-naming-numbering

Part of Kings Hill in Kent is named after apple varieties - Discovery Drive, Elstar Place, etc.

https://goo.gl/maps/owsNK8VFaisGkwW66

[trickstat]

This estate in Milton Keynes uses the names of deceased people from music for its road names.

For those (probably younger) who do not know Monro, that would be the British crooner Matt Monro.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Hen ... 2563a4f913:

[linuxrocks]

I grew up in Para Hills, South Australia and all the roads were named after the estate agents who were trying to sell houses to the £10 Pommie tourists. It was quite odd being one of the very few Aussie born kids there in the early 1960s.

Clearly whoever laid out this part of Baltimore liked aeroplanes. Who wouldn't want to live on Yawmeter Drive https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/604 ... 76.4625381

[Marzo]

By the way, Downend Road in Fishponds, Bristol and Downend Road, Downend, South Gloucestershire are one and the same road, but numbered from each end towards the city boundary. Confusing if you don't have a postcode to help.

[Chris Bertram]

By the way, Downend Road in Fishponds, Bristol and Downend Road, Downend, South Gloucestershire are one and the same road, but numbered from each end towards the city boundary. Confusing if you don't have a postcode to help.

On a similar note, Warwick Road, Birmingham, is a long road diverging from Stratford Road in Sparkhill, and is A41. It reaches the boundary with Solihull where Acocks Green becomes Olton, at which point the street numbers reset to 1, having approached 1300 within Birmingham. The road continues as Warwick Road, albeit with a new postcode and district address. Also the odd and even numbers swap sides!

[trickstat]

The road continues as Warwick Road, albeit with a new postcode and district address. Also the odd and even numbers swap sides!

That must be confusing if you are looking for a particular house or premises. You might think "I know I've still got a little way to go yet, but at least I know it will be coming up somewhere on the left (or right)", only to find that it is on the other side.

[Robert Kilcoyne]

On a similar note, Warwick Road, Birmingham, is a long road diverging from Stratford Road in Sparkhill, and is A41. It reaches the boundary with Solihull where Acocks Green becomes Olton, at which point the street numbers reset to 1, having approached 1300 within Birmingham. The road continues as Warwick Road, albeit with a new postcode and district address. Also the odd and even numbers swap sides!

The street numbers on the A34 Stratford Road also reset to 1 at the Birmingham/Solihull boundary where Hall Green becomes Shirley. And the odd and even numbers again swap sides.

[FosseWay]

I grew up in Para Hills, South Australia and all the roads were named after the estate agents who were trying to sell houses to the £10 Pommie tourists. It was quite odd being one of the very few Aussie born kids there in the early 1960s.

Clearly whoever laid out this part of Baltimore liked aeroplanes. Who wouldn't want to live on Yawmeter Drive https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/604 ... 76.4625381

Swedish street naming is much more down to earth than English, in general, and "Yawmeter Drive" reminds me of the kind of name you get here in newly developed estates. There are areas of town with weather-related names, including various examples of bad weather; musical instruments; obsolete units of measurement and currency; various fields of engineering; there is even a district with petroleum-product-based names. Fancy living on Bensingatan (Petrol Street)?

In more rural areas, the typical traditional sources of names tend still to be the commonest - the ones that describe a notable feature along the street (e.g. Kyrkvägen/Church Road, Hamngatan/Harbour Street), the road's significance (Storgatan/Main Street), or where it goes (Mölndalsvägen/Mölndal Road). These inevitably get duplicated in many adjacent villages, so within a given postal district they tend to have a prefix, e.g. Kullaviks Hamnväg to distinguish it from a hamnväg in some other place. There are clear rules about not having duplicate names in the same area, where the "name" doesn't include the street/road/avenue word. You don't get the situation where Acacia Road, Acacia Avenue and Acacia Close are all different roads in the same locality. I believe the same is true in the US, which leads to the specific American English usage where the word Street (etc.) is left out - "I'll meet you at the corner of Washington and Franklin" - because in that locality there will only be one road respectively named after those figures. Whether it's Washington Street and Franklin Avenue or vice versa is therefore almost irrelevant (except in NYC where avenues are N-S and streets W-E).

[Tom H]

Over in the US, the dropping of the "Street" interestingly wouldn't work in Phoenix, AZ. N-S streets are all numbered (1st, 2nd, etc.) while E-W streets are all named. There is a central axis N-S street through downtown Phoenix named Central Ave (duh!) with 1st, 2nd, etc. radiating outwards from the centre in both directions. Streets to the west of Central are 1st Ave, 2nd Ave, etc. while streets to the east of Central are 1st St, 2nd St, etc.

In this case, someone asking to meet on the corner of "24th and Van Buren" would need to be very specific about which 24th they are referring to, as it could leave you over 4 miles apart and on the complete wrong side of town! The only upside, if something does go wrong, is the very direct route along Van Buren between the locations

[Robert Kilcoyne]

The A89 Glasgow Road in Garrowhill and Baillieston had been within Lanarkshire until 1975, but Garrowhill and Baillieston were both incorporated into the city of Glasgow in 1975 under the Local Government Act, so Glasgow Road is now within the Glasgow city boundary:-

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/She ... 1385?hl=en

[Alderpoint]

In the part of Yorkshire where I grew up it was common to have whole estates names with one basename and then road, street, avenue etc. So the "Apsin" estate comprised Aspin Lane, Aspin View, Aspin Way, Aspin Drive, Aspin Oval, Aspin Avenue, and Aspen Chase. And when they extended it the new part was call "Apsin Park" which comprised Aspin Park Lane, Aspin Park View, Aspin Park Way, and so on. Boring!!

[RichardA626]

Marple where I grew up has a few streets named after early industrialists, mostly with a local connection.

Oddly they aren't all part of an estate as such but dotted around the town & built at different times.

[AndyB]

That's extremely common. Developers like their residents to know what development their house was part of.

[the cheesecake man]

Oxford Colleges in Bootle, seems somewhat insensitive to me in such an area

London Underground Stations in Nottingham is somewhat random, predictably the spine road is called Mornington Crescent! At least it won't cause the confusion it would in London.

Old joke brought to life in Sheffield!

More birds , this time in Thorpe Hesley

Horses in Aintree

Titus Salt's relatives in Saltaire

Edit: typo

[scragend]

Oxford Colleges in Bootle, seems somewhat insensitive to me in such an area

Oxbridge colleges

Sidney (Sussex), Gonville (& Caius), Downing and Clare are all Cambridge colleges.

[the cheesecake man]

Oxford Colleges in Bootle, seems somewhat insensitive to me in such an area

Oxbridge colleges

Sidney (Sussex), Gonville (& Caius), Downing and Clare are all Cambridge colleges.

Oh yes, I hadn't noticed the Cambridge colleges to the east before. Perhaps the developers belatedly saw the light

[Viator]

Swansea has a Fford Amazon leading to a warehouse occupied by the said online retailer. I'm not sure whether it has been adopted by the city council. If it hasn't, presumably the owner can call it whatever he wants, regardless of any restrictions on commercial connections.

[Catching up a bit late (as ever) with a thread I'd missed earlier...]
Ffordd Amazon has been adopted (the signs include the local authority's coat of arms) -- but by Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council rather than the City and County of Swansea, since Amazon's distribution warehouse (like Swansea University's new Bay Campus) is, administratively, in Castell-nedd rather than Abertawe.

[PhilC]

On a similar note, Warwick Road, Birmingham, is a long road diverging from Stratford Road in Sparkhill, and is A41. It reaches the boundary with Solihull where Acocks Green becomes Olton, at which point the street numbers reset to 1, having approached 1300 within Birmingham. The road continues as Warwick Road, albeit with a new postcode and district address. Also the odd and even numbers swap sides!

Just to confuse things further, the city boundary runs along the centre of Warwick Road for a short distance. Travelling out of Birmingham, the boundary is crossed at Lincoln Road on the left. The house numbers then restart at number 1. However, on the right hand side of the road the boundary is not encountered until the Olton Filling Station, which is numbered 10-24. Numbers 2-8 Warwick Road, Solihull, are actually within Birmingham. I used to work for Solihull Council and this boundary used to cause no end of problems.

[PhilC]

The street numbers on the A34 Stratford Road also reset to 1 at the Birmingham/Solihull boundary where Hall Green becomes Shirley. And the odd and even numbers again swap sides.

And interestingly, Stratford Road, Solihull has the highest house number in the UK, at 2679.

[Chris Bertram]

The street numbers on the A34 Stratford Road also reset to 1 at the Birmingham/Solihull boundary where Hall Green becomes Shirley. And the odd and even numbers again swap sides.

And interestingly, Stratford Road, Solihull has the highest house number in the UK, at 2679.

How far out is that? Hockley Heath?