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Is the Name of Your Street Practical or Whimsical?
“You want the street name to be something people would be proud to live on,” says one developer. But no bad vibes, please.
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 of 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.”