In my town we have the intersection of Beaver and Cherry. It's in an older part of town.

Always liked Lovers Lane.

We have lots of Mills, Fords and Gulphs in the street names around here. We have almost no Streets, just Roads, Lanes, Drives, Avenues, Ways and Circles. Houses with four house numbers are generally on a street that is not a through street.

Because our area was founded by the Welsh, there are some truly unpronounceable street names, such as Cynwyd and Clwyd.

The streets in one of the least desirable parts of our town are all named after Ivy League colleges. Go figure.

I dislike developments where the developer named streets after relatives or his kids. Thelma, Twyla, Alfred, Nancy -- might have been sweet aunts or uncles, but no thanks for addresses. And adding a "posh" Court, Circle, Lane, Terrace, or Way doesn't improve things: Bobby's Court or Linda Terrace -- still crummy street names.

Never a fan of roads named after contractor's family...Linda Lane, Mary Way, Doris Drive....

Mine calculates at 276% higher than the average home. Go figure. It's a British-sounding name that has to be spelled every single time, and it's a Drive (not a Street). I'll put it out there the next time we have an appraisal!

My previous road is 304% higher and my current is just 43% higher. Did we make a mistake selling and buying? Should I be upset? I don't think so.

Love all the fun street names posted! The calculator doesn't happen to work for our area. Street names from more affluent areas show "less than" results, while streets with less expensive homes show "more than" results. Of course averages are only averages, so this doesn't suggest that the calculator is wrong.

On a trip to Nashville, IN (not TN) I took a picture of a street sign because I found it so odd: Scarce O Fat Road. Maybe skinny people built the road?

There's a development in a town near me where many streets are named the same first name. So there's an Oakmont Drive, Oakmont Circle, Oakmont Court, Oakmont Lane... you get the idea. I'm sure there are people who wrote down only part of an address (123 Oakmont) and then had a hard time finding it. Why would a developer do that? Silly.

My previous address shows 464% more expensive than the national average, and so it looks like I also moved down, but then I did want to be in a more affordable neighborhood. I moved from a very trendy street near the beach and canals to a quieter, more residential neighborhood. My previous street had quite a bit of traffic, and the one I am on now has almost none. My current neighborhood was built 1947-1952 to provide housing for employees of Howard Hughes, and the original houses were small, but the lots were very large and allowed room for the houses to be expanded, as mine was. All of the original back yards were huge, and so it was easy to create additions to the backs of the houses. They seem to have been designed with this in mind.

I lived in a subdivision in Colorado Springs with street names like Teeter Tottler Lane and Sleepy Hollow Circle. We always assumed the developer let his kids do the naming.

My current street name gave me thirty some percent under, which is funny because it's actually a highly sought after street in a highly sought after neighborhood--it's all about the schools. As the article says, it's all local in the end.

The streets that change names, I think that's common in England. At least it was in Cambridge. I spent a summer being very confused by all directions.

I grew up in a rural area where the street names were almost all family names--and I knew some of the families. My address, though, was Star Route, Box XXX. I don't think the area started using street names and house numbers until high school (or later). House numbers in that area indicated the distance from the start of the road in thousandths of a mile (581 Banks Road was 0.581 miles from the start of the road).

I went to graduate school at UC San Diego. The street names there were long-winded and made for some interesting intersections--the corner of La Jolla Village Drive and Villa La Jolla Drive (in beautiful La Jolla, CA).

I now live on a low-numbered avenue, at 33% less than average. Generally, the calculator shows that the lower the number of the avenue (closer to city center), the less it was worth compared to the US average. Higher numbered avenues were worth more than average. Streets were worth less than avenues. My house is actually worth way more than the national average because the whole area is priced higher than the national average. But it's probably true that for my area, homes on numbered streets (which are mostly in the flatlands) are worth less than homes with named streets (including the higher priced hills).

Toronto has "Avenue Road". Which is it?!

Houseofsticks, are you talking about "Lovers Lane" in Dallas? Lovers Lane Methodist Church had a great singles bible study...so many marriages came out of it that they started their own group :)

There is a street near here called Yubinaranda Circle. Say it out loud. :)

And I live on a circle that is a dead end. It was supposed to go around, but they discovered that not enough of the proposed lots had septic capability, so they abandoned it. We have 12 houses.

We have some $1M+ McMansions nearby with really odd street names. They tried to be a horse community but failed, so the names are both pretentious and meaningless.

My city uses 0 for a street number, the numbers are only two digits maximum, these addresses have been here since the thirties.

Not in our city but the street I wouldn't want to live on is Palos Verdes Drive West or East or North or South. Too long it is common to only refer to it as PV Dr East or West or South or North.
It is common to have the West, East, North or South at the end not the beginning of the street name.

This applies not only to houses, but to institutions. I have been teaching at the same university for 43 years. When I first took the job, my first reaction to its real proletariat name was to change it: no upper middle class kids were every going to come to such a school. (I was considered the worst kind of snob...not, but I understand these nuances.) Lo and behold, twenty years later a nice man gifted the instution with $100 Million dollars--and they changed the name lickety-split. It doesn't replace Harvard and Yale, but at the very least, it has moved up on the list to a respectable safety school. For example, in a neighboring state, you can attend West Chester University or Kutztown University. Which would you prefer, not knowing anything about them?I mean no insult to Kutztown, but that is a burden for the school to drag around. Cute, when you're a tourist in the Amish country, but not quite solid enough for your alma mater.

Love some of the names of the streets! In our village all the "main" roads are named for the town that they go to...you just have to know which direction to go to get there!
The widget has a flaw though. I put in the name of the road where our tiny island cottage is located - it was 770% above - while one or two of the roads where the houses are mega-mansions that are on the water with their own beach, etc are 35% less... go figure that one!

In a rural area close to the town we lived in before, there was a Ball Cut Off Road. I had never thought about the name really until I heard a male DJ speaking of it one morning on the radio. I recall him saying he got queasy every time he passed by that particular road.

In my own neighborhood in that former town, the entire first phase of the development we lived in had the same street name which in theory was okay. I guess because if you were to look at a plan of the neighborhood the street layout appeared as a continuous off-set figure-eight. However, in reality where the segments met there were actual intersections not including the short entryway and side street connecting us to another subdivision. So in total I think there were 5 three-way stops all with the intersecting streets having the same name! Trick or treating and pizza delivery could be a real treat for those not familiar with the neighborhood. Not to mention this made the sequence of addresses hard to follow.

Oh, and the street name itself was a nine letter word (which always had to be spelled out for others) followed by Oaks followed by Lane. Talk about a mouth full!! Not to mention there were NO mature oaks in the neighborhood. There was a HOA covenant that required that each house built had to plant one Live Oak tree and one other type of oak in the front yard. So the inhabitants years from now will get to enjoy the oaks in ......... Oaks. Many of which will have to be cut down due to their proximity to one another.

This whole conversation reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer made it to the LES and came upon the intersection of First and First and later determined that he must be at the nexus of the universe as a street had intersected itself.

This post was edited by louisianapurchase on Mon, Jan 26, 15 at 22:05

In our little town, there is a road called Sodom Road. New people bought a farm on the road and then went to the town asking to have the name of the road changed. They claimed it was embarrassing to live on a road that reminds some people of what they might consider deviant behavior. It was a big issue in town. One side agreed that the name should be changed. The other side said that it was wrong to change a name that had been used for over 150 years.
We were in Beijing and turned on CNN and we were stunned to see the story on the international news. The name was not changed.

When we were looking at houses three years ago, I spotted a lovely home with a surprisingly low list price. It was located on "Climax Rd." I considered looking at it, but knew that I would never be able to deal with that street name, and I couldn't put my teenage kids through that either! That house sat on the market for at least a couple more years that I know of.

Vedazu,
I was thinking you might be referring to Beaver College changing its name to Arcadia, but you send a "neighboring state" so now I am trying to think!

Glassboro State College to Rowan University--now with two medical schools, an engineering school and a huge business school.

There is a rural road we pass on the way to the interstate that always gives me a laugh....Poorhouse Road. Those poor folks who live on it.

I grew up in a county that has a Suck Egg Rd. Never did figure that one out, but it always gets mentioned in those articles about weird place names.

aha!

But you have to admit, it was a really good idea to get rid of Beaver College ...

Someone mentioned it possibly being the developers idea of a joke.
Decades ago I worked for a construction company. I was told that at least in one case the developer did it due to anger with the city or zoning board. etc. The names were idiotic although not really offensive. I have forgotten most of the names but I think one street was Broken Plate.

There's a development named McLean Hamlet where Birnam Woods Drive ends at Dunsinane Court.

mtnrdredux, I used to live in K of P, on Prince Frederick St. What a pain that was!

I think I would like a new job as a professional street namer. I thought we had some dumb names down here, but now I realize it is nationwide!

Coldwater Canyon Dr seems like a nice street.

I've noticed dumb names more prevalent in the eastern half of the country than in the west, probably because it has been settled longer, and the old names are somewhat obsolete. This country values new over old and established, and so old names are more likely to be devalued, even if they have more historical value. A lot of the old names, however, probably were given without very much thought.

I do find this a very interesting subject, as I have had to come up with names for new furniture designs, finish colors, and fabrics, and before that, I used to name my clothing designs so that I could easily file my patterns.

This post was edited by publickman on Mon, Jan 26, 15 at 22:44

Actually, I like the "dumb names" in New England. Colonial names, Indian names, Brit transplants, etc. I like the history. And at least in my area, these odd names often have cache. Eg in our town, property tax asessements include adjustment for the street address, and in some cases, a long, odd Indian name is assessed higher than a more pedestrian name because it is in fact more prestigious. (hard to parse the name vs other issues, granted)

Tamara, that must have been quite something, LOL!

Publickman, What a fascinating task. I've noticed names ever since I was in high school and noticed that my favorite nail polish was called Shanghai Express, which I felt meant nothing at all...

There is a street in my town named just "the Boulevard". My friend lived on this street, and he could never order things online or over the phone--he'd say "123 Boulevard", and they'd say "what's the name of the boulevard?" He'd say "no, no, just Boulevard" and it would go on and on. Hilarious!

Street names, paint color names, etc would be so fun to be in charge of. Sign me up!

Of course New England names are influenced by Amerind names... Nonopoge, Nunnawauk, Creconoof, Algonquin...and by religious names from the Great Awakening...Mt Nebo, Sodom, Galilee Way, Jordan Hill...
Then there's the ever curious Obtuse Rd.

DLM, there probably was a prison camp on Prison Camp Road. Lots of naming like that here. We have streets named after industries like Westinghouse which are long gone. There are several of these named after businesses.

I remember talking to someone once who lived on "Boulevard", can't recall where.

My favorite from Virginia was Butt Hollow Road. The signs would get stolen all the time.

Growing up in Buffalo, Johnny Rzeznik from the Goo Goo Dolls band lived near the corner of Clark and Kent--aka
"The Superman Corner", which he used for his publishing name. This was about maybe 7 blocks from where my family had lived. One of my HS friends lived next to Johnny.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Superman Corner

Annie: Obtuse Road probably refers to an obtuse angle on it.... hopefully NOT to someone who once lived there!

(I've seen that road!)

mtnrdredux: Yes, indeed, Arcadia is much better!

My address contains "666" and it usually receives too much attention. Once I needed to get a storage unit and when I gave the lady at the counter my address, she became a little distraught. She had to call her husband to ask if it was okay to allow me to rent a storage unit. Sheesh.

Re 666 -- my friend has a house with the number 667, and so she went and got a bumper sticker she plastered on the mailbox that reads "Neighbor of the Beast".

Go for the humor!

(There's really no "666" across the street - the other side of the street lacks houses for awhile due to terrain.)

Too funny re 666.

In our area, we have a lot of Native American names on streets and towns. Nobody can spell my town's name. Even if you spell it out for them, they mess it up.

We have a Rockingham street near our house and everytime I go by it, just for a second, I think of OJ Simpson.

We have some Native American names around here and I love it. It is so fun to say things like Scajaquada, which is an expressway.

gsciencechick, I was just about to post about Clark & Kent. What about the idea of changing Squaw Island to Deyowenoguhdoh? I haven't learned to pronounce it yet but I think it is great!

I would have loved to have bought the house on Begger Man Lane.... but it was overpriced.

Another like for the Native American names! They're just so fun. :)

Although my favorite: The Road to Nowhere (ie. PA route 222)

Magdalena, I live in a city just north of Toronto that has a very high Asian population, like Vancouver and maybe San Francisco. The sound of the number '4' is very similar to 'death' in Chinese, so many residents in my city are very superstitious about having an address with a four in it. On the other hand, the sound of the word '8' means prosperity, so it's considered very lucky to have an address with an eight in it. Last year, house #888 on our street sold for $48,000 more than the very same model 6 houses down, that had MORE upgrades!

A little off topic, but here's a very interesting article on the big business of naming products.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/18/magazine/the-weird-science-of-naming-new-products.html

Maggdalena, it's hard to believe people are that superstitious!

"Re 666 -- my friend has a house with the number 667, and so she went and got a bumper sticker she plastered on the mailbox that reads "Neighbor of the Beast". "

I'd love to meet your neighbor, Artemis, I'll bet she is FUN!

I live near Seldom Seen Road. There are many roads named for long-gone families and farms -- and folks way back when, I think, didn't find some surnames quite as "amusing" as we do know.

There is a road nearby that I first thought was Bean Oiler Rd. which struck me as pretty funny. Turns out I misread the sign, it is Bean Oller -- again old family names. Also we have 3Bs and K Road.

Running that widget above, I found that every street I have ever lived on is below market average.

I have to agree about streets named after first names -- Edna Court, Whitneyway, etc. Even as a child I instinctively didn't like those streets.

In a nearby city, you could buy a house on Morning Wood Dr. It will set you back roughly 1 million for a 2700 sq' house built in the '80s.

In Rancho Santa Margarita, Antonio Parkway intersects with Avenida de las Banderas. The signs just list Antonio & Banderas.

The University of California, Irvine has some interesting housing and street names [link below]. I think would be fun to live there. :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Middle Earth

We have North Street and South Street...and of course North North St,. and South North St. and North South Street and South South Street....

Well, I'm boring and low-value: I live on a numbered street (like 4th Street) and that's worth 56% less than the average US home. But it does have the advantage of clarity in my grid-based neighborhood. The widget tells me if I were to re-name it "4th Street Place, Court, Circle, Drive or Road" I could increase its value anywhere from 63-140%.

I grew up in a Midwestern suburb with English names for most of the roads: Beckett, Keswick, Ludlow, Chadbourne, Avalon. Pretty street names, pretty area.

My street starts out named _____ Street, goes for 5 blocks, then changes its name to ____ _____ Place, then goes for 2 more blocks and then changes its name to _____ ____ _____ Lane. Naturally, I live on the ____ ____ _____ Lane part, so it's really hard to direct anybody to my house.

And I seem to have this weird house number thing going. Our house number is now 313. Our last house was 711.

One more: The cemetery where my parents are buried is at the corner of Highway P and Elvis Place. The cross street before that is Elvira Lane.