Transferred Street Names in Belfast

Familia: Ulster Genealogical Review, 2023

Drawing on a research scheme undertaken by the Northern Ireland Place-Name Project from 2005 to 2007 and funded by Foras na Gaeilge, along with personal research carried out subsequently, this article examines some of the themes to be found in Belfast street-names, including royalty, local and national dignitaries, politicians, residences of the eminent and wealthy, products, manufacturers and producers, and geographical names. Some themes are studied in detail to establish just which street-names form part of the theme, and factors obscuring connections are discussed. This article highlights the fact that themes often include more street-names than is at first apparent. A longer version is available in the "Papers" section.

2023

This display was prepared for Libraries NI and was on show in the Heritage Department in Belfast Central Library for the month of June, 2023. The city of Belfast has an enormous and richly varied stock of street-names, especially when one adds those used in the past (streets now cleared or renamed) to the list of current names. The earliest street-names known from the 17th and 18th centuries were unofficial and subject to variations in spelling and alternatives. People who are familiar with the city will be aware of the group of street-names connected with the Chichester family, whose head held the title Earl of Donegall, and later Marquess of Donegall. These include Chichester Street itself, Arthur Street and the numerous street-names in Donegall, such as Donegall Street, Donegall Road, Donegall Place, Donegall Pass and Donegall Square, etc. Many other streets and landmarks were named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in the 19th century, such as Victoria Street, Great Victoria Street and the Albert Memorial Clock. Other themes which are discernible include peerage titles of lords and nobles, military leaders, politicians, geographical names and occupations, as well as some more “niche” topics such as classical myth, literary names and racehorses. This display dealt with four of the less well-known themes in Belfast street-names and explores what lies behind them: products and producers; big houses; ships of the White Star Line (all built by Harland & Wolff); and a cluster of geographical names from the Indian sub-continent. It also included a short biography of John J. Marshall, whose articles on Belfast street-names were published in the Belfast Telegraph in 1940-41. The exhibit consisted of maps, archive photos, present day photos, text, newspaper cuttings, artefacts and Marshall's own scrapbook, but only the accompanying text is made available here.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2016

Street names provide important insights into the local culture, history, and politics of places. Linked open data provide a wealth of knowledge that can be associated with street names, enabling novel ways to explore cultural geographies. This paper presents a threefold contribution. We present (1) a technique to establish a correspondence between street names and the entities that they refer to. The method is based on Wikidata, a knowledge base derived from Wikipedia. a The accuracy of this mapping is evaluated on a sample of streets in Rome. As this approach reaches limited coverage, we propose to tap local knowledge with (2) a simple web platform. Users can select the best correspondence from the calculated ones or add another entity not discovered by the automated process. As a result, we design (3) an enriched OpenStreetMap web map where each street name can be explored in terms of the properties of its associated entity. Through several filters, this tool is a first step towards the interactive exploration of toponymy, showing how open data can reveal facets of the cultural texture that pervades places.

Stamford Plus. Winter, 2005. Pp. 16-18., 2005

Kristina Shtereva, report for Stamford Plus (Connecticut), contacted me about street names. She noted that local people in her area could not give good driving directions. I noted that most people who have lived in a particular area for a long time learn the geography by walking (or driving) to places for various services and goods. They often do not pay attention to street names. Moreover, street names can be changed by the representatives on the local governing council. This adds to the problems of locating a specific address. These official street name changes also require a change for all people and businesses located on those streets.

Onoma: Journal of the International Council of Onomastic Sciences, 2021

Street names (odonyms) and their academic study constitute an important part of onomastic research. This paper takes stock of the growing literature on street naming processes and provides a meta-analytical systematic review of odonymic scholarship. To this purpose, a collection of 121 peer-reviewed articles on street names published in English language academic journals in the social sciences and the humanities were identified in the Scopus database. The statistical analyses conducted on these materials indicate (1) the temporal dynamics of knowledge production and the geographical hotspots in toponomastic scholarship, (2) the geopolitical settings and historical contexts framing these studies, (3) the theoretical perspectives employed to conceptualise street naming practices, and (4) the methodological outlines characterising the research done on street names in the literature. The conclusions point out four main clusters of toponomastic research and indicate directions for future inquiry in street name scholarship.

Social Change Review, 2021

As toponymic means of inscribing urban space, street names have been addressed mainly by human geographers, who have articulated the field of critical place-name studies. In this paper, I continue the endeavor started in the previous issue published in Social Change Review of reading street names through sociological lenses. Whereas in the first part of this two-part contribution the analysis was made from functionalist and conflictualist perspectives, this second and final part employs social constructionism and the utilitarian theoretical tradition in making sociological sense of street nomenclatures. First, conceiving of street names as forming discursively constructed linguistic landscapes, the paper shows how urban namescapes – the “city-text” – are written, erased, and rewritten to reflect the shifting political powers. Second, the paper examines the neoliberal processes of place branding and toponymic commodification by which street names are turned into sought-after urban commodities with transactional value on the real estate market. The paper concludes by inviting sociologists to join the conversation on street names, which should become an important topic of sociological reflection.

DEVELOPMENT TRENDS OF PHILOLOGICAL SCIENCES, 2019

Social Change Review, 2020

Street names are mundane spatial markers that besides providing a sense of orientation inscribe onto the landscape the ideological ethos and political symbols of hegemonic discourses. This review article takes stock of the existing scholarship done on the politics of street naming practices in human (political, cultural, and social) geography and rethinks these insights from sociological perspectives. Drawing on Randall Collins’ taxonomy of sociological theory, the paper interprets urban street nomenclatures along functionalist, conflictualist, constructionist, and utilitarian lines. The analysis is delivered in two installments: Part I addresses urban nomenclatures from functionalist and conflictualist perspectives, while Part II (published in the next issue of this journal) approaches street names as social constructions and examines their utilitarian value. In doing so, the paper advances the argument that urban namescapes in general and street names in particular should make an important object of sociological reflection and empirical analysis. It is one of the key arguments developed in this paper that toponymy encapsulates broader and intersecting issues of power, memory, identity, language, and space which can be rendered visible through sociological analysis.

2017

According to the transnational architecture, several buildings and architectures travel all around the world, but also names such as Soho or Venice do the same and it's interesting understand the reasons and how this phenomenon happens and which are the differences between them when these names land in completely different territories. The main idea is to investigate the reasons, the vectors and the effects of the naming processes in different part of the world and also research, if possible, the international framework through which the mobility of the naming process has done its course. The research question is also related to the typical international, artistic and fashionable atmosphere which join together these districts through the world: starting from London's Soho district to that of New York's which can be considered as first example of this tendency related to the naming transfer. Why and how the name " Soho " travelled from London to New York and then all over the world? In order to tackle these issues, some examples are taken from the Soho all around the world in order to understand the reasons by which the naming process took place and the heterogeneous effects that has characterized the built environment, the social-economical sphere and the peculiar context in which they are in. This aspect of the analysis it's crucial because if the name is the same, maybe the concrete and environmental effects change from one place to another: the comparison and the georeferencing tool on GIS software are the main tools through which it's possible to explore more in depth the theme. Secondly, it's crucial realize how many differences and similarities are present in each example studying the gaps and the typical expression of each Soho because the naming process in every landing modify something and evolve and this is a peculiar characteristic of transnationalism in contemporary cities. Introduction In order to build the general framework of the naming transfer process, it's quite interesting understand the origins of the name Soho and its transfer from West End London to New York. The word " Soho " was first an hunting cry during a rabbit hunting session precisely in the area where nowadays it's present the Soho district: in fact before the Great Fire of London in 1666, Soho was almost entirely made up of fields with a few farm and cottages 1. Later on the name was used in order to indicate that particular area of London as expressed in a letter of J. Keats 2 in 1818: from then Londoners commonly called the area Soho. More than a century later, a former industrial neighbourhood in Manhattan got its name from an acronym, " South of Houston Street " because of its position in the regular grid 3. The area has become a famous example of inner-city regeneration and gentrification, encompassing socioeconomic , cultural, political and architectural developments. In the late 1960s, the city was redeveloping the area and used the acronym widely in its planning documents and an New York Times article dated 19 October 1969 described the area as " one of the city's finest architectural areas, the cast-iron district […] characterized by " the spacious loft buildings that once harboured mostly small businesses have been infiltrated by thousands of artists and their families ". The name was given also considering the important fashionable influence of London's Soho: but what is not clear is why and how this name travelled all around the world in this last 50 years and this is the reason why I have chosen to deepen more this topic.