Do you guys name your streets?

[MintberryCrunch 83]

Do you guys name the streets in your city using the label feature? Where do you get names from?

It might seem like a waste of time sometimes, because modifying streets and buildings can cause the labels to disappear, but I still like to name the streets in all my cities. I usually wait until the city's developed a bit to do it, but I always end up doing it in the end.

I get ideas from cities around here mainly. When I developed a suburban-sprawl type city, I borrowed Spanish names from OC towns, like Calle Patricia or Via Mendoza. Other times I just go with numbered streets if the city is more grid-like. In the case of my big-tile city, I divided it up into quadrants and named the streets with NE, NW, SE, SW prefixes depending on which quadrant it's in (this is the system in Portland, Oregon). 

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I used to do that, but it became far to much like work.  Generally, I get names of cities (and streets) from literature, often from mythology.  Because I happen to know a city planner in Toronto, I found out that streets are generally named in new subdivisions by the contractor who is the overall supervisor.  I know of one guy who named a street for this secretary.  Often streets are named after the contractors kids or relatives.

[peperodriguez2710 138]

My spanish cities have typical street names found from all around Spain "Mayor/de la Constitución/de España/de la Virgen de.../de San"...

I take a look to real cities and simply write in a paper the names that could fit. And that's it! I usually write them when the city is in an advanced state, cause when I'm planning it I usually label things for remembering where they will go.

Regards ^^

[SteveMSim 275]

I found naming streets too much work; I just name neighborhoods and certain natural features such as lakes and mountain peaks.

[MushyMushy 3,618]

I've always thought it would be fun to name more of my streets, but I just haven't. Occasionally I'll find one to name "Main Street" and that's about it. I do usually name my highways and mass transit networks though.

[airman15 4,113]

I would if it's for a very small town or for major transit networks like freeways or rail lines. Otherwise I would focus too much on building each street and forget I was supposed to name them after each one is laid down.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Anybody know the real name of L.A.?

Ciudad de Nuestra Signoria de los Angles (or something like that.  My Spanish is very poor.

 

[MintberryCrunch 83]

I knew it as El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles. But there are other versions of it, I think. 

Most of my cities are named after Spanish words and names and a lot of my streets are too. The SoCal influence shows everywhere. lol

 

  Edited November 22, 2015 by MintberryCrunch  

[airman15 4,113]

I know of an online generator that can create a list of names for fictional cities and have used it to bypass any naming blockage for new cities. It includes some variants that can be used for ship names, personal names, and even street names.

  Edited November 22, 2015 by airman15  

[Odainsaker 2,137]

As I like hierarchically axial and ceremonial streets, I'll name these more important streets using names pulled from real cities and personal experience.  Often, these will be similar to colonial names and are typically honorary namings:  Honolulu has a Beretania Street from an older Hawaiian transliteration of "Britannia," Shanghai had an Avenue Joffre in the French Concession named after the French WWI general, even San Antonio has a King William Street named after King Wilhelm I of Prussia, and all of these and others in a similar vein will end up in my cities.  I don't, however, have the sanity to name every street.

 

 

[philforhockey51 4,220]

I once used to many years ago but quickly came to find I had more fun spending my time moving onto the next city, only some main ones get a name nowadays.

Side Note: Many streets around my real life neighborhood once had German names, but during WWII many were changing including Hamburg Way into Wilson Avenue, some smaller side streets lost their name and were replaced with such names are Marne. Sadly somewhere along the line someone made a mistake and Maine St. became Main St. though it is all of two blocks long. It has been named that way for decades, and to think it was probably a typo at some point that caused the change.  

[MintberryCrunch 83]

Thanks for the answers, everyone

I can definitely understand how naming every street isn't appealing for many. Part of why I do it may be because I only have one region and most of my cities aren't that big...but even I haven't named every tiny street. Though sometimes I just throwout unimaginative names like "NE 224th St." just to think of something. lol

[airman15 4,113]

Numbered streets are more convenient for road networks arranged to follow a grid. Think of major cities like New York and San Francisco. The numbers as well as the letters are made so you would locate an address, at say 8th & J, and you are at 14th and A, you would go over six streets and down 9. In suburban neighborhoods, pretty much any name goes however most follow a certain theme. In Sacramento, there is a neighborhood in which the streets are named after types of trees. And in another one the streets are named after types of minerals.

For smaller towns, it may depend on the way it is laid out. For your mountain communities, any major roads leading in and out will likely be considered a highway as there aren't many addresses connected to the road. Once you pull into town, the road could be considered the "main" road especially if there are many commercial/governmental lots sharing the stretch they sit on. This kind of town could have a street name made for a certain building that connected to it like "Church St." 

Sims may not notice the naming, but it could serve as a way to have a general idea of what has been built were in a region. It could even help in writing a City Journal.

  Edited November 24, 2015 by airman15  

[MintberryCrunch 83]

Most of my grids have numbered streets going north-south and then various other names for the east-west streets. In one city, the east-west streets in the grid are alphabetically arranged: Anza, Balboa, Cabrillo, Daytona, Eddy, etc. so it has sort of the same function as lettered streets. 

In Sacramento, there's also streets named after inventors: Marconi, Watt, Howe, Whitney, Edison...I noticed that last time I was there

[Sabretooth78 808]

For smaller towns, it may depend on the way it is laid out. For your mountain communities, any major roads leading in and out will likely be considered a highway as there aren't many addresses connected to the road. Once you pull into town, the road could be considered the "main" road especially if there are many commercial/governmental lots sharing the stretch they sit on. This kind of town could have a street name made for a certain building that connected to it like "Church St." 

Sims may not notice the naming, but it could serve as a way to have a general idea of what has been built were in a region. It could even help in writing a City Journal.

This is pretty much what I've been trying to do.  You'll notice in a lot of rural areas that the main road heading out of town will be named after the next town, and once you cross the municipal boundary the name will change to that of the town you were just in.  Or, the whole stretch will include both towns/places hypenated such as A-B Road.  The generics on these roads will typically be "Road", "Highway", "Trail", etc.  "Pike" (short for turnpike) is common too, especially it seems in the eastern US where such roads were toll roads long before the advent of vehicular traffic.

As for my CJ region, you'll note in my street map I label street names but for the most part I don't do so in game - it's too much work.  I figure once I ever get a good-sized city going and the grid density becomes to high I might just skip naming all the minor roads.

Some good ideas on naming conventions here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_or_road_name

[MintberryCrunch 83]

Speaking of conventions, Sonoma, CA has a strange system that I would never use: they have a Broadway in the center, and then parallel numbered streets with the same numbers on both sides counting up as you move away from Broadway (with "east" or "west" appended to the end). So there's 1st Street West, then 2nd Street West on one side of Broadway but 1st Street East and 2nd Street East on the other side...personally I'd rather just have different numbers, but at least it has some logic behind it. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Heh!  You should take a look at Bumble-Bee, AZ.  There are two main cross streets called Ho, and Hum.  This retirement community is set up so you can go down to the corner of Ho and Hum.