Streets/Roads/Towns You Once Thought Were Named After Famous People, But Are Not

[lepidopteran]

As for what H. B. Elkins said about King Street and MLK, I'm reminded of Madison, WI, where there is *both* a King Street and an MLK Boulevard.

Columbus, OH also has a King Ave. and a MLK Jr. Blvd.

Cartersville, GA is not named for the President from that region.

A residential street in Toledo, OH is name Goddard Rd.  I had assumed it was named for the first rocket scientist, Robert H. Goddard, but the road appears to be have been named in the 1930, well before that would become noteworthy.  Not sure who it was named after.
Similarly, across the Michigan state line, there's a Goddard Road outside of Detroit that runs from Romulus to Allen Park (and continues on all the way to the river, actually).  That appears to have been named for the Goddard Farms in the region.

[KCRoadFan]

Cartersville, GA is not named for the President from that region.

It might have been named for an ancestor of his, though. That's entirely possible.

[KCRoadFan]

This one might not exactly match the OP's intent, but nevertheless I think it falls within the spirit of this thread.

I had always thought that the DC suburb of Beltsville, MD was a planned community built in the 1960's and named for the Capital Beltway, which runs nearby.

As it turns out, it was named such back in the 19th century after Truman Belt, a local tobacco farmer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltsville,_Maryland#History

[Henry]

As for what H. B. Elkins said about King Street and MLK, I'm reminded of Madison, WI, where there is *both* a King Street and an MLK Boulevard.

Columbus, OH also has a King Ave. and a MLK Jr. Blvd.

In Charlotte, NC, there's Graham Street and the Billy Graham Parkway. And ironically, both have exits off I-85, seven miles apart.

[The Nature Boy]

BTW, current events prompt me to remember a colleague with whom I worked 25 years ago who heard the name of a city in Virginia that is named after its founder, John Lynch. He didn't know anything about the city's history and assumed it was named for an unsavory form of extrajudicial murder that was once frequent in parts of the South.

I once had a coworker lecture me on how inappropriate it was that DC had a suburb named after Alexander The Great. He seemed unaware of origins of Alexandria, Virginia's name and refused to believe me when I told him he was wrong.