Since 1998, Lorrie Parise has come up with the names for hundreds of streets, roads, drives and trails that crisscross two Houston-area planned communities, The Woodlands and The Woodlands Hills. Somewhere along the line, she began to think that naming a baby is easier than naming a street.
“You have to strike the right balance,” said Ms. Parise, now the regional director of public relations and community relations for Howard Hughes Holdings, a real estate development and management firm. “You want the street name to be something people would be proud to live on. But you don’t want to try too hard with the name. If it’s too complicated or too hard to spell, you’ve gone a little too far.”
Nailing the name sometimes keeps Ms. Parise up at night. Looking at the area on a map sometimes helps, as does considering the name of the neighborhood. For Prelude Woods, a section the Woodlands Hills, Ms. Parise went with music-themed names like Pastoral Medley, Calmato Woods Way and Lontano Path. The road leading to the Woodlands College Park High School is Honor Roll Drive.
According to the United States Postal Service, the most common street names in the country are a bit less whimsical (take our quiz to see what they are). But, fanciful or pragmatic, they have a job to do. While it’s unlikely that home buyers would put down a deposit on a house or walk away simply because they love (or hate) the idea of living on Pastoral Medley, names often figure in the decision, even if subliminally.
“You’re buying a house and you’re buying everything that goes with it,” said Aren Bazzocco, the Sacramento division president of the homebuilder Taylor Morrison. “You’re buying the neighborhood, the surroundings, the whole package — and that includes the name.”
A street with a well-chosen name “helps support the selling proposition of the community, helps reinforce that it’s a golfing community, a young community, a family-friendly community,” said Allen Adamson,” a co-founder of Metaforce, a brand consulting firm. “The smarter developers are weaving a story about the community. And street names are a subtle way to tie into the story.”
Before they break ground, developers submit a list of street names to municipal agencies for approval. Any names that duplicate or even sound like ones that are already in use in the area are typically rejected because of the potential to confuse emergency responders.
“We might give them 100 or 200 names and be told, ‘OK, you can’t use 30 of these,” said Brent Gibadlo, a senior vice president at Brookfield Properties. “We’ve learned not to put Main Street or Elm Street on the list.”
And of course, developers don’t want anything with a negative connotation. “That’s why you’ll see a lot of street names in our communities based on flora and fauna,” said Jim Carman, the president of the Houston region of Howard Hughes Holdings. “Not many people get upset about butterflies.”
There’s good reason for such care. Over the past several years, under pressure from residents and civil rights groups, some cities and towns have renamed streets with racially charged names.
Following legislation enacted by the Virginia General Assembly in 2022, any piece of U.S. Route 1 that was known as Jefferson Davis Highway, named for the president of the Confederate States, had to be renamed Emancipation Highway. According to a spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Transportation, all but one of the counties affected by the law successfully petitioned to come up with an alternate name for their stretch of the highway. Patriot Highway was one choice.
Last year, the city council in Missouri, Texas, a Houston suburb, approved changing Bedford Forrest Drive, named for the Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan grand wizard Nathan Bedford Forrest, to Liberty Way Drive. And this past spring, Squaw Hill Road in Bennington, Vt., became Joslin Hill Road, a tribute to a local family.
Some new developments are insuring comity by involving the community in the process. Howard Hughes Holdings, for one, has donated the naming rights for a few streets to nonprofit organizations as a fund-raising opportunity. “They can put them out for bids if they’re having an auction at a benefit,” said Ms. Parise.
In a couple of Taylor Morrison developments in Elk Grove, Calif., streets have been named to honor deceased veterans and first responders. “There’s a ceremony where we dedicate the street and have the family there to talk about their loved one,” said Mr. Bazzocco of Taylor Morrison. “We hope to do it in other cities.”
Inspiration for street names often comes from geography. Magnolia Lane is a nice fit in the South, while Black Cherry Lane would be more on point up North. Some developers take their cues from the surrounding topography or from local landmarks. At Nexton, a planned community by Brookfield Properties in Summerville, S.C., an area near water has street names like Clearblue Loop, Cool Bend Lane and Watertrail Street.
Themed street names suggest that thought went into the planning of a neighborhood. But they also serve a directional purpose. If first-time visitors to Nexton are coming to see friends who live on Symphony Avenue and they see Alto Lane, Baritone Road or Rhythm Street, “they’ll probably think, ‘I’m on the right track,’ “ said Mr. Gibadlo of Brookfield Properties.
But he’d draw the line at something like Diva Drive, which has a negative vibe. A street name “doesn’t have to be the star of the show,” Mr. Gibadlo said, “but at least it should be something they’re happy to say is their address.”
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