I was once in a Columbus, OH subdivision with streets pretentiously named after British royal family members. The girl I knew there lived on Princess Diana Court. How obnoxious.
I don’t really mind living on a street with a dumb name. Right now I live on Adelphi, which I find pretty cool. I’ve had a lot of interesting street names, in fact–I grew up on Brighton Boulevard, which has a neat ring to it.
One of my favorite things to do with my street name is to give people a hint on how to spell it when I’m giving them my address. Most of the time it makes no sense, but I like saying “Cornell Avenue, Cornell like the school” or “Maryland, like the state” or “Brighton, like the beach.” If I lived one street over, I could say “Carlton, like the guy from the Fresh Prince.”
Near here is a street named Kangaroo Court. That one always makes me smile.
Not too far from here is Swallow. I think that one would possibly be a deal breaker. Just never could hear me telling a friend “Oh yeah, I live on Swallow”
The people who live on Weed St. out in Irmo or somewhere hate it, because people are always stealing the street signs and it’s hard to direct people to their houses.
I thought that, too, until a realtor took us to look at a house on Deliverance Drive. I’m sure it is the product of one of the many evangelical minds that shape our city, but I couldn’t get banjo music or the kid on the porch in the movie out of my mind. We looked elsewhere for a home.
During the Reagan years in DC, the block of 15th Street that housed the Soviet Embassy was renamed for, I think, Natan Scharansky.
In cities with a changing demographic, there’s a tradition of newly black-dominated city councils renaming the rich, white boulevard after Martin Luther King, Jr.
I grew up in Reston, Virginia, which was newly-built in the 60s and had no claim to anything like tradition or glamour. Around Lake Anne (the northern half of Reston in the early days), most of the streets were named after golf- or boat-related terms, while in Hunters Woods (the southern half; hunting is strictly illegal there), the roads are named for equestrian terms or the legal profession. It was a transparent stab at getting old money/foxhunt country elan to contrast itself with the more rural Herndon, one town over. Lake Anne Plaza looks pretty quaint and crumbly now, but back in 1971, it looked almost science-fictioney.
You bet. Given the choice of a house on … oh, Glencairn Drive or Krumpf Street the next block over, I’ll take Glencairn, thank you very much.
Before I bought my current house, I rented a place on Edsal Drive. The address would always elicit snickers. I can only imagine the reaction if I lived on Gay Street in Euclid (“Gay” is a rather common street name in the US), or Felch Street in Warrensville Heights.
One street near where my parents live must confuse the hell out of delivery drivers and telephone order takers - Pfohl Road. Natives pronounce it as “fall.” The Buffalo area has more than its fair share of harsh German-based street names and Polishtongue-twisters. Buffalo’s Poles get very offended if you can’t pronounce their names correctly, and the same thing goes for the street names.
My neighborhood has 4 streets, all named after birds. Robin, Wren, Bluejay and…Swallow. It wasn’t until I was about 18 that people started giggling when I gave them directions to my house (it didn’t hit me until then either). “You go down Swallow and end up coming into my driveway”.
Dorks
There’s a town near Akron called Copley that I always thought had some funny street names…
Oh Ave
Druid Drive
Colon Drive
Pickle Road
Organ Ave
One of my friends moved from Munroe Falls-Kent Road to West Cross Creek Trail. It must suck for him when he has to write his address over and over. I’ll stick with my short street names.
Got you beat. Industrial-sounding street names are a deal-breaker for me, too.
Another deal-breaker would be the “redneck developer’s daughter” names often encountered in exurban areas, like “Patti Sue Drive,” “Tammy Lynn Road” or “Tiffani Court”. The uber-Catholic street names in some parts of Buffalo, like Rosary Drive, St. Jude Drive and Maryknoll Drive, would also make me feel a bit uneasy, like I don’t belong there.
For all of those who would happily live on Gay Street, Wojciechowski Street, Blast Furnace Road or wherever, would you live here?
You could live on the corner of Lonesome and Hardup if you lived here. My road is named Sportsman’s Club. Sounds elegant don’t it? The “Sportsman’s Club” is a concrete block building. I think the guys that belong to the “Club” go there to drink and shoot at stuff.
There’s a Gun Barn Rd. here. In a big trailer park, some folks live on Easy St. In a neighborhood called Sleepy Hollow, there’s an Irving Way. I once knew a guy who lived at the corner of Hillside and Paradise. One of my wife’s uncles created a subdivision. After he named streets for all his children, he named the last one for his wife and him. Lucretia and Ernest; Lucerne, you say? Nah, it’s ErnieLu Dr.
Back when we lived in Texas, we almost bought a house in Lake Jackson. They have some streets named This Way, That Way, etc. If I could have found a house on Any Way, dang, I think I’d of bought it on the spot!
There’s a road near where my FIL used to live called Booger Hollow Rd. Couple that with the local pronuciation and you have “Booger Holler”. Now, they say that it’s “booger” as in “southern slang for a ghost or supernatural creature”, but still not an address I’d like to own.
