Whether you develop up in a big city or in alewdly named small townsfolk , you may have wondered how the local streets got their name . Why might all of the roads in a new residential domain benamed after treesor characters from thelegend of Robin Hood , for object lesson ?
For the most part , substantial estate and subdivision developer have the prerogative of naming unexampled street in the United States . The name is submitted to the urban center for brushup , at which point the public service agencies , including the police department , fervidness section , and post office , are give the chance to veto the name if they palpate it creates any disarray .
“ The developer submits street name to the city through the relevant department for reassessment , ” Catherine Nicholas , chief executive officer of the CADO Real Estate Group in San Diego , told Zillow . “ The building , applied science , and public study departments all scuttlebutt , but the department that have the most remark and veto magnate are police force and fire . ” That ’s because those bureau need to be able-bodied to pinpoint an emergency based on the street gens , so the propose name and intersections need to be unique for the area .
While developers can feel loose to submit any name they ’d like for a new street , such as the name of their small fry , urban center usually have guidelines and touchstone for certain areas that demand street names to be of a specific theme .
This is why , for example , you see a great quantity of street named after trees in one particular segment of Philadelphia , or U.S. res publica represented inavenue names in Washington , D.C.If the purpose name of a new street does not fit that paper , there ’s a adept probability it will be rejected , but how stern these policies are bet on the case-by-case jurisdiction . If you happen to be a developer and want to name a street after yourself , you ’d have best luck in a new suburb than in an conventional metropolis .
merriment fact : The most pop U.S. street name is 2nd or 2nd Street , because First Street is often replaced with Main Street or something similar . Now read up on a few of thestrangest street namesin the country .
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A version of this story was published in 2013 ; it has been updated for 2024 .
