Pretentious street names

[1995hoo]

Good chance this topic has come up before, but I didn't find it by searching. When I went to the grocery store this weekend, I found myself thinking how absurd it is that the street leading into the parking is named "Clemaline Boulevard." See Street View below–the street to the left is a "boulevard" but exists solely to give access to parking, as it ends just up the way at the Wegmans car park (Wegmans is where the steeple-like thing is visible in the distance). The street is unlikely ever to be extended due to the land on the left (a former landfill) being reserved for Park Authority use and the land beyond Wegmans (also part of the former landfill that was later the site of a nine-hole golf course) not being suitable for building anything.

https://goo.gl/maps/kZuTCoixw9KyDsxz8

I found myself wondering about examples of utterly pretentious street names of this sort. I'm sure there must be hundreds of them. I'm not thinking of situations where a road was truncated and kept its old name (Reston Avenue is an example of that–it used to include what is now Reston Parkway) because it's understandable to keep the old name in that situation. I'm thinking of roads that are given some sort of name that is out of all proportion to the function the road actually serves.

[empirestate]

There may be a distinction to be made between purely vanity addresses, such as for corporate headquarters where there may or may not be a physical road or driveway that bears the name in the address, and what are or appear to be actual public roads, such as in this case.

One could also argue that the very use of descriptors like "boulevard" and "avenue" in residential areas around the country is an example of the same thing, as these terms originally would have applied to roads of a much more substantial character.

Finally, there's another pretentious naming practice that I've noticed for years, and it will often be found in the same type of suburban area as your example. This is the naming constructions of "The 'X' at 'Y'"–for example, "The Shoppes at Wedgewood Green" or "The Residences at Shirewood". The connotation seems to be that Wedgewood Green and Shirewood are eminently well-known locales in their own right, like Beverly Hills or Regent's Park, and so there's no need to actually give a name to the shopping plaza or housing development located there because their identity will be immediately obvious to anyone of sufficient erudition. Of course, the trick is that "Wedgewood Green" and "Shirewood" are actually completely made-up names themselves–often applying to nothing but that single shopping plaza or group of residences.

(There's even something a little pretentious, I think, in the use of the preposition "at" rather than "in". "In" suggests being located in a particular city or town, while "at" suggests a location that's somewhat self-contained and removed from the multitudes; that is to say, exclusive.)

[KCRoadFan]

What came to mind for me was the common practice of using British-sounding names (to convey an air of classiness) for residential streets and apartment buildings in middle-class or even low-income suburban areas.

[hotdogPi]

What came to mind for me was the common practice of using British-sounding names (to convey an air of classiness) for residential streets and apartment buildings in middle-class or even low-income suburban areas.

Enough of them are town names in this area that it doesn't even register that way over here.

[KCRoadFan]

What came to mind for me was the common practice of using British-sounding names (to convey an air of classiness) for residential streets and apartment buildings in middle-class or even low-income suburban areas.

Enough of them are town names in this area that it doesn't even register that way over here.

I guess I was implying outside of New England.

[empirestate]

What came to mind for me was the common practice of using British-sounding names (to convey an air of classiness) for residential streets and apartment buildings in middle-class or even low-income suburban areas.

Enough of them are town names in this area that it doesn't even register that way over here.

I guess I was implying outside of New England.

In (or near) New England, it's perhaps more common to use names that sound both British and archaic–such as by appending an 'e' to words like "shop" or "green".

[1995hoo]

What came to mind for me was the common practice of using British-sounding names (to convey an air of classiness) for residential streets and apartment buildings in middle-class or even low-income suburban areas.

Enough of them are town names in this area that it doesn't even register that way over here.

I guess I was implying outside of New England.

In (or near) New England, it's perhaps more common to use names that sound both British and archaic–such as by appending an 'e' to words like "shop" or "green".

I find it interesting how some people will reflexively add that "e" even when it isn't part of the name. For example, the historic area in the City of Alexandria, Virginia, is named "Old Town." I've frequently seen it spelled "Olde Towne" by many people. (I tend to associate "Olde" with the word "Ye," as in "Ye Olde Apothecary" or whatever, although then you have Arvada, Colorado, which has an area called "Olde Town" with an "e" only on the first word.)

[Max Rockatansky]

Pretty much any road with a French name that isn't located in Detroit, New Orleans or near Quebec. 

[thspfc]

What came to mind for me was the common practice of using British-sounding names (to convey an air of classiness) for residential streets and apartment buildings in middle-class or even low-income suburban areas.

The new trend is nature-sounding words like "Whispering Prairie Drive"  or "Flowing Creek Lane" .

[JayhawkCO]

What came to mind for me was the common practice of using British-sounding names (to convey an air of classiness) for residential streets and apartment buildings in middle-class or even low-income suburban areas.

The new trend is nature-sounding words like "Whispering Prairie Drive"  or "Flowing Creek Lane" .

Where I grew up out here, that's all the names.  Wildcat Reserve Parkway, Spirit Rock Point, Wagon Box Circle, and I lived on Morning Glory Place.

Chris

[LilianaUwU]

In Québec City, there's a residential street called Boulevard Gastonguay. There's also Boulevard Jean-Talon, though this one is a proper boulevard further west.

[SkyPesos]

Reed Hartman "Highway" in the Cincinnati area. In reality, it's a 4-6 lane stroad.

[7/8]

Reed Hartman "Highway" in the Cincinnati area. In reality, it's a 4-6 lane stroad.

Better than calling it a street

[formulanone]

It's hard to top the "Greater Hazleton Chamber of Commerce Beltway", for all-round unctuousness.

[wanderer2575]

The new trend is nature-sounding words like "Whispering Prairie Drive"  or "Flowing Creek Lane" .

Suburbia:  Where they tear out all the trees, then name the streets after them.

[7/8]

It's hard to top the "Greater Hazleton Chamber of Commerce Beltway", for all-round unctuousness.

Yeah that's certainly a mouthful! I thought "unctuousness" was typo, but apparently that's a word

[SEWIGuy]

I had a friend who lived in a western themed apartment village with street names like Buckskin, Wagon Wheel, Chisholm, etc.  He lived on Rodeo Court, which he always pronounced ro-DAY-o.  Like the fancy shopping district in Beverly Hills.

[1995hoo]

The new trend is nature-sounding words like "Whispering Prairie Drive"  or "Flowing Creek Lane" .

Suburbia:  Where they tear out all the trees, then name the streets after them.

Heh. There's a neighborhood just west of where I went to high school that's named "Maple Trace." I remember when the construction started my mom said, "Yeah, that's because there won't be a trace of a maple left." Of course, that was over 20 years ago and some new maples have grown in the years since then.

[SEWIGuy]

The new trend is nature-sounding words like "Whispering Prairie Drive"  or "Flowing Creek Lane" .

Suburbia:  Where they tear out all the trees, then name the streets after them.

Actually the suburbs have more trees than the farm fields they replaced.

[michravera]

Pretty much any road with a French name that isn't located in Detroit, New Orleans or near Quebec.

What about roads in France, Monaco, Western Italy, Switzerland, Guadeloupe, or Francophonic Africa? Are those pretentious?

[JayhawkCO]

Pretty much any road with a French name that isn't located in Detroit, New Orleans or near Quebec.

What about roads in France, Monaco, Western Italy, Switzerland, Guadeloupe, or Francophonic Africa? Are those pretentious?

How dare you forget French Guiana and St. Pierre & Miquelon. 

Chris

[I-35]

It's hard to top the "Greater Hazleton Chamber of Commerce Beltway", for all-round unctuousness.

Tell me the locals have shortened that to the CoC Ring.

[formulanone]

Pretty much any road with a French name that isn't located in Detroit, New Orleans or near Quebec.

What about roads in France, Monaco, Western Italy, Switzerland, Guadeloupe, or Francophonic Africa? Are those pretentious?

How dare you forget French Guiana and St. Pierre & Miquelon. 

Chris

They're not located in Whataboutism.

[michravera]

Pretty much any road with a French name that isn't located in Detroit, New Orleans or near Quebec.

What about roads in France, Monaco, Western Italy, Switzerland, Guadeloupe, or Francophonic Africa? Are those pretentious?

How dare you forget French Guiana and St. Pierre & Miquelon. 

Chris

They're not located in Whataboutism.

I was hoping that someone would say that they were pretentious as well!

[skluth]

What came to mind for me was the common practice of using British-sounding names (to convey an air of classiness) for residential streets and apartment buildings in middle-class or even low-income suburban areas.

Enough of them are town names in this area that it doesn't even register that way over here.

I guess I was implying outside of New England.

In (or near) New England, it's perhaps more common to use names that sound both British and archaic–such as by appending an 'e' to words like "shop" or "green".

I find it interesting how some people will reflexively add that "e" even when it isn't part of the name. For example, the historic area in the City of Alexandria, Virginia, is named "Old Town." I've frequently seen it spelled "Olde Towne" by many people. (I tend to associate "Olde" with the word "Ye," as in "Ye Olde Apothecary" or whatever, although then you have Arvada, Colorado, which has an area called "Olde Town" with an "e" only on the first word.)

It's funny that Ye is a misunderstanding caused by the invention of printing and fonts. We don't have thorn or eth thanks to the Germans who didn't use either letter.