Name Game Is Right Up Your Avenues

Like a name, Social Security number or pineal gland, everybody has one.

Some like theirs. Others tolerate them. Most don’t give them a second thought, even though they use them, on the average, about as frequently as they floss.

There are 50,429 of them in Los Angeles County--one street name for every 130 men, women and children. This year alone there are 1,180 new titles, a sure sign of prosperity or overcrowding, whichever comes first. Last year there were only 441. Matthew Chang of Thomas Bros. Maps puzzles over the surge, guesses that it’s due to “lower interest rates.”

He Just Counts Them

Chang just counts ‘em, lists ‘em, prints ‘em. He doesn’t name ‘em, God forbid. The developers do that, in the great majority of cases. By and large, they do a lousy job. Or a great job, if you’re partial to Elm Street or Ocean Boulevard .

The names they choose are generally Pleasant , but Common . Very little Flair . Some, though, are Fantastic , even Mystic . Others--depending upon who lives thereon--could be Perfect .

How felicitous to be able to identify with one’s thoroughfare: “I’m the man of La Mancha “; the “big noise from Winnetka “; “We’re living on Easy Street .” To be able to say, “I have a Gettysburg address.” To declare, depending on personal name: “I’m Anne of Green Gables “; “Rock of Gibraltar “; “Joan of Arco .”

Less auspicious, perhaps: “I live on Charity ,” “in Traction .” More disconcerting, surely: “What street do you live on?” “ Guess .”

Most streets, though, are a nice safe Maple or Marigold or Mountain View , which is understandable, if less than galvanic.

“You can’t blame the developers for not going off on a tangent,” says Linda Arnold. “You want to give a place a nice--or at least neutral--name to help sell the property.”

Arnold is incontestably the most streetwise woman in Los Angeles. Her title is as misleading as it is cumbersome: cartographer in the Right of Way Investigations Section of the Bureau of Engineering.

In practice, she wields enormous power. If you want to name a street within the L.A. city limits (more than 10,000 at last count), your choice must be approved by Arnold. If you’re stuck, Arnold will name it for you. (Beyond city limits, other communities have similar offices and procedures.)

The names must further be finalized by the City Council, but the process is pro forma . Seldom are Arnold’s recommendations overruled. “Once,” she confesses, “I wanted to name two streets in a tract Mork and Mindy . Only Mindy made it.”

It was a rare departure. “Almost all of my--our--choices and approvals are conservative,” she says. “Not by fiat. It’s my nature. I tend toward indigenous flora, or terrain. Last street I named was Quiet Hills Court , up by Chatsworth. It’s hilly, quiet. At least it was last time I was there.”

Non-controversial flowers, trees and plants indeed make up a large percentage of names, from Acorn to Zinnia about as stimulating as cereal. A few departures, though: the fortuitous Touchwood , the poignant Two Tree Avenue , the whimsical Chocolate Lily Lane .

The likes of Hyssop and Myosotis are relatively recherche, but it took two false starts ( Chaparal and Chapparal ) before they got Chaparral to grow straight. (“Before my time,” says Linda Arnold.)

Guiltless gossips in Pomona, meanwhile, can always claim, “I heard it on Grapevine .”

Fauna are rampant as well, generally native birds or fish. Still, when was the last time you saw a Gnu in the backyard, let alone an Ibex or a Mermaid ?

An Albatross Address

Albatross is a tough address to hang around the neck, though it beats Las Pulgas , in Pacific Palisades. One of the oldest streets in Los Angeles, it translates to “the fleas.”

“We don’t tap trees and plants for our street names,” says Ira Norris, a developer for Inco Homes. “Too mundane.

“What we do is research the history of the area, try to name streets for the early families, the pioneers. If there’s no history, we’ll go with the terrain: Desert View , that sort of thing.

It was not always thus. “I’ll never forget my first project--a subdivision in Woodland Hills. I’d sunk my last dime into it.

“The L.A. Flood Control District, though, required an easement (a right to utilize land) from the property of one Joe Weller. I begged him. He was adamant. Here was a young guy on the verge of going broke. . . .

“Finally I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”

The offer still stands. It’s called Weller Drive .

Names of People

Names of people often are a sore point among namers of streets. Someone is forever wanting to christen a byway after a mother-in-law or a German general, and running head-on into the rule book. In the first instance, the mother-in-law has got to be dead. In the case of the German, he had better have fought on the side of the Forces of Light, like Steuben .

Arnold explains: No street may be named--first name and last--for someone now living. An exception was made last year for George Burns on his 90th birthday, but aside from Burns, not even the late Rudy Vallee could beat the system.

In the ‘70s, Vallee wanted his Hollywood Hills road to bear his own illustrious handle. Cute name, too: Rue de Vallee . No way, said the council. “Nuts!” countered Vallee, presumably through a megaphone, and proceeded to name it anyway. At least that’s the way it’s listed in the Thomas guide.

“Sure,” says Arnold, “Thomas can list anything they want. Just between us, though, Rue de Vallee is not a street. It’s Rudy’s driveway.”

Depending on developers’ proclivities, there are clusters of streets here and about with an overriding theme. Parallel roads in a classy section of Woodland Hills are named Cezanne , Da Vinci , Gaugin , Matisse . . . . Breezy Palos Verdes lists heavily toward ships’ names and nautical terms. Claremont features colleges, or at least the more prominent among them. (Neither Cal State Dominguez Hills nor the Jules Stein Eye Institute yet rates as much as an alley, but give them time.)

Music Scores, Too

Scattered about are nods to music, both sacred and profane. At altitude are Bach , Aida , Toscanini , Bravo . Closer to sea level are the swingers ( Dorsey , Miller , Goodman ; Parker , Ellington , Coltrane ), the singers ( Sinatra , Fabian , Supreme , Sumac and a wonderful parlay of Patty , Maxine and LaVerne ), the dances ( Calypso , Hula Hula , Ticatica ), the songs ( Eroica , Pinafore , Greensleeves , Stardust and, for the sharp of both ear and eye, Atchison - Topeka - Santa Fe and the immortal Scottish ballad Carmen - Trudy - Rye ).

Writers rate, from Ovid through the Bard to McBain , as well as their works-- Medea , Coriolanus , Don Quixote , Lolita --and their tools: Pen , Page , Colon . . . .

Boozers get a richly deserved nod-- Bordeaux , Cordial , Bud , Muscatel , Julep , Ripple , Gibson , Upper Brew , Manhattan , Margarita ; Tavern , Barman , Cork , Parched and High .

And lovers are always in fashion. One could, in fact, trace an entire relationship in L.A. street names alone, to wit: Gleam , Desire , Dare , Chase , Date , Court , Caress ; Contented , Enchanted , Exultant ; Graphic , Fertile , Radiant , Childs . . . .

“There’s a whole history--200 years’ worth--in our street names,” says Arnold, an L.A. native. “The oldest street in Los Angeles is--was-- Calle Principal . Now it’s Main Street .

“The longest name, at least in the city, is Ellison S. Onizuka Street in Little Tokyo. The council renamed Weller Street for the late astronaut, even though it exceeded our length limit (16 letters, including spaces).

Commercial Names

“There’s another rule now against commercial names, though I remember when Proctor and Gamble intersected at their factory in Wilmington.

“Clark Gable, when he owned half of Encino, named Tara Drive and Ashley Oaks . Roy Rogers put through Dale Avenue and Trigger Street .

As for changing a name, Arnold explains: “If a substantial majority of property owners requests a new name, the petition goes to council and it’s changed.”

No such requests, yet, from the solid citizens of Dump Road , Nadir Street , Bootlegger Canyon , Fink Place , Cranks Road or Dork Street . Nor is there a petition afoot to merge Baldy Vista with Hairline Court , or Aroma Drive with Deodora Avenue . Some people just like it that way.

No complaints, obviously, from residents of the prettiest-sounding streets in the county: Whispering Leaves Drive , Lullaby Lane , Happy Hollow Road , Misty Morning and Evening Breeze .

No petitions either, not even a raised eyebrow, from the bemused denizens of Bonnie Beach Place , a street hard by a grimy railroad yard in Vernon and at least 15 miles from the nearest surf.

Presumably satisfied with their lot, too, are the people who live on Ace Place , Sweet Street , Cum Laude Avenue , Heavenly Way and Yellow Brick Road .

No opinion from Lost Hills Road , Hidden Terrace , Mirage Lane or Elusive Drive , many of whose residents haven’t been seen in years.

‘A Lot of Research’

“We do a lot of research,” says Linda Arnold, “but if the developer wants to name the street with his granddaughter’s first name, no problem--as long as it hasn’t been taken. Historic figures we check out.” ( Dolly Madison , sans the E , was also before Arnold’s time.)

“We’re not too sticky here, though there are a few rules: north-south streets, for example, are avenues; east-west are streets.

“Even some people here in the office have had streets names after them. Churchill isn’t for Winston, you know; it’s for Howard, one of my former bosses.”

Arnold herself isn’t into that sort of glory.

“If I had to name a street name after myself,” she says, gazing out a seventh-story window at her beloved Los Angeles, “if I really had to, I think I’d call it Daydreamer Lane.”