*Footnotes

Communities in the San Fernando Valley have been caught up in a trend of changing their names. Sepulveda became North Hills; an area of Canoga Park was renamed West Hills; Valley Village, West Toluca Lake, Valley Glen and others soon followed. Some people scoff, but changing names is nothing new in the Valley.

* In the early 1920s, Agoura was known as Independence. In 1924, after Paramount Studios bought what is now known as the Paramount Ranch, the area changed its name to Picture City. But in 1927, that name was rejected by the U. S. Post Office, which preferred one-word names. So it was renamed Agoure, after a local Basque rancher, but the “e” was later replaced by an “a.”

* Moses Hazeltine Sherman has the distinction of having two streets and a community in the Valley named after him--Sherman Way, Hazeltine Avenue and Sherman Oaks. Sherman, along with Harry Chandler (Chandler Boulevard), Leslie C. Brand (Brand Boulevard), Isaac Van Nuys (Van Nuys Boulevard) and others formed Los Angeles Suburban Homes Co., which first developed the Valley in the early 1910s. Before it became Sherman Oaks in 1927, it was called Cahuenga Park.

* Woodland Hills was originally named Girard after its chief developer, Victor Girard. The community of Girard was eventually incorporated into the city of Los Angeles and, in 1945, renamed Woodland Hills.

* Toluca Lake was the original name of North Hollywood, named after a city in Mexico. Developers changed the name briefly to Lankershim, for Issac Lankershim, a farmer who had owned the land. It was renamed North Hollywood in 1923.

* Studio City was originally called Maxwell. The home of Republic Film Studios, it changed its name in 1928.

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“What’s in a name?” William Shakespeare pondered that question almost 400 years ago. “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” But it wouldn’t be a rose. Our names affect how other people think about us. And how we feel about ourselves. The same is true of the name of the place we call home. *