Name Game : Communities: Part of Canoga Park joins Woodland Hills in a move to increase prestige and property values.

Get out the Thomas Guides and the pens--it’s another round of “Rename the Neighborhood.”

This time, a neighborhood in southwest Canoga Park has defected to Woodland Hills in search of greater prestige and higher property values.

About 800 residents of the neighborhood bordered by Victory Boulevard, Vanowen Street, Topanga Canyon Boulevard and Shoup Avenue petitioned Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joy Picus in early June to redraw their community boundary.

Picus approved, and so with a few swipes of a city employee’s eraser, the neighborhood divorced Canoga Park and wed Woodland Hills, becoming the latest enclave to break away from older San Fernando Valley communities.

Since West Hills was forged from the western end of Canoga Park in 1987, three other neighborhoods have either changed their names or realigned their boundaries. The creation of North Hills last year eliminated the community name of Sepulveda altogether.

“I think it’s unfortunate that this started to happen in all these communities,” said Mary Ann Clarke, one of the organizers of the Woodland Hills petition. “But you have to go with the flow.”

Following the lead of their breakaway compatriots in West Hills, North Hills and Valley Village, the new Woodland Hills residents said they were tired of being associated with the problems of Canoga Park and of always telling people they lived on the edge of Woodland Hills.

“There are a lot of people who have put their homes up for sale and no one would even look at their property because it said Canoga Park,” said Ralph Weisner, another coordinator of the drive. “Canoga Park has an undeserved bad reputation. But I don’t think there is anything we can do about it.”

While a more upscale name may mean the world to residents and prospective home buyers, it doesn’t mean a thing to the U. S. Postal Service, which still considers the area north of Victory to be Canoga Park. Mail addressed to Woodland Hills may be delayed, spokesman Peter Hass said.

Name changes in the San Fernando Valley are nothing new.

Woodland Hills, for instance, used to be called Girard, after Victor Girard, the developer who built up the area. It did not become Woodland Hills until 1941. And Canoga Park once was Owensmouth because it was suckled on water from the Owens River. Residents there voted that name out of existence in favor of the more euphonious Canoga Park in 1931.