Odonymy in the United Kingdom

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Odonymy refers to the street or road naming conventions in the toponymy of the United Kingdom.

Contents

History

Houndsditch, an example of a street name with no suffix in the City of London HoundsditchEC3.jpg
Houndsditch, an example of a street name with no suffix in the City of London

Many towns (particularly in England) will refer to their main thoroughfare as the High Street or Main Street, and many of the ways leading off it will be suffixed "Road".

In the City of London, according to tradition, there are no "Roads"; all the streets there are called "Street", "Lane", "Court", "Hill", "Row" or "Alley", or have no suffix (e.g. Cheapside). This is because the word "road" did not come to its current definition until around the 16th century. [1] However, since 1994, part of Goswell Road now lies in the City of London, making this a unique anomaly. [2]

Culture

Some older road names that were created in an innocuous or matter-of-fact way, and that were accepted at that time, are nowadays considered rude e.g. Gropecunt Lane. [3]

Road numbering

List

London

Statistics

The top 15 most-common street names are: [4]

References

  1. ↑ "Etymology of "road" by etymonline". etymonline. Retrieved 16 April 2025.
  2. ↑ "Why there's not a single Road in the City of London". The Londonist. 15 August 2012. Retrieved 19 April 2016.
  3. ↑ Smith, Oliver (3 October 2017). "Are Britain's rude road names under threat?". The Telegraph. ISSN   0307-1235 . Retrieved 26 March 2021.
  4. ↑ "The Most Common Street Names In The UK". The Fact Site. 21 March 2009. Retrieved 26 March 2021.

See also

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