Booking an Ego Trip on the Road to Fame

There’s nothing inherently odious about public officials naming city streets after themselves. Oh sure, the uncharitable among us might call it a tad self-serving, but when you consider the range of things they could do to their constituents, maybe we should thank them for stopping at self-memorialization.

So, it’s not Placentia’s penchant for naming streets after city officials (including live ones) that rankles; it’s their utter lack of imagination that should prompt shouts of recalls.

Last week, the city noted that a new development will feature streets named after, among others, Mayor Michael Maertzweiler. He and a couple of former city officials now join 44 current or past Placentia council members whose names line the streets, including three of the five current members. Councilman Norman Eckenrode (Eckenrode Way) says the designations represent “kind of a reward” for their public service.

That’s one way to look at it.

Another is to lament the fun the city could have had in thinking of other names.

What’s in a name? Everything.

The neighborhoods sprinkled through Orange County give developers and city officials all kinds of opportunities.

Around UC Irvine, streets are named Mendel, Dickens, Blake, Whitman and Curie. Those are not the members of the Irvine council.

Presidents are popular. Anaheim gives us Adams, Jefferson and Lincoln; I prefer Costa Mesa’s more obscure grouping of Cleveland, McKinley and Fillmore.

A North Tustin developer obviously came to us by way of back East: he gave us Allegheny, Oak Ridge and Blue Ridge drives. On the other side of town in East Tustin, Keith and Kenneth streets intersect. I had two uncles named Keith and Kenneth Johnson, but to my knowledge neither ever set foot in Tustin.

The Royal Road

No city apparently feels as regal as Monarch Bay, which gave its streets names like Louis XIV Court, King John Lane and King Charles III Lane. You’ve got to love their specificity. No chance a councilman could crack that group.

On the less royal side, a Garden Grove developer gave us consecutive streets named Gail, Margie, Norma and Janette. How could you not feel at home living in that neighborhood?

Someone in Fountain Valley’s past liked birds, but he or she didn’t take the easy way out. One neighborhood sports streets named Toucan, Flamingo, Puffin and Magpie.

I wonder what the nationality was of the Cypress planner who gave us Tremezzo, Firenza and Santorini drives?

Laguna Hills gives us Spotted Pony, Empty Saddle and Rocking Horse lanes.

Costa Mesa thought exotic: It clustered Sumatra, Barbados and Bermuda into one tract. Likewise Mission Viejo, when it settled on Cancun, Mazatlan and Acapulco but then didn’t bother to attach “street,” “drive” or “lane” to them.

With such exciting resort destinations available, why did Huntington Beach settle on Nantucket, Hyannis Port and Cape Cod drives? Rather East Coast, aren’t they?

Much more acceptable are Huntington Beach streets named Tarpon, Sailfish and Flounder.

The temptation must be great to want a street named after you. Many of Orange County’s big-money families have theirs: We have Irvine Boulevard, Segerstrom Avenue and Callen’s Corner.

We have no street named Bren.

To my ears, a street sounds better when you don’t name it after yourself. The best example belongs to one of the largest thoroughfares in the county. More than 100 years ago, a man named John Rea bought ranchland near Disneyland and named it Katella--after his daughters Kate and Ella.

Now that it sees the possibilities, I hope Placentia rethinks its self-congratulatory street-naming policy.

How could a city that named streets in one neighborhood Gehrig, Ott, Appling and Cobb turn around and give us Maertzweiler and Eckenrode?

If nothing else, let’s hope these two streets don’t intersect.

“Hey, I’ll meet you at the corner of Maertzweiler and Eckenrode.”

Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it, gentlemen?

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons at (714) 966-7821 or at The Times Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or at dana.parsons@latimes.com.