One-word street names are unusual but not entirely uncommon.
Two-word street names are definitely the norm.
Three-word street names are all over the place.
But four-word street names are rare.
Here are a few: SCOTLAND GREEN ROAD NORTH, ADAM AND EVE COURT, DUKE OF YORK STREET, HAUNCH OF VENISON YARD, HYDE PARK GARDENS MEWS, LITTLE ST JAMES'S STREET, STOKE NEWINGTON CHURCH STREET, SAINT MARTIN-THE-FIELDS CHURCH PATH
And five-word street names, or longer, are even rarer.
I wondered how rare.
Specifically I wondered what proportion of street names have 1/2/3/4+ words.
You can probably guess that two-word street names are most common, but are they 60%, 70%, 80% or whatever? You might want to have a guess before I bash some stats.
I started with my local postcode area, E3.
It has 461 streets, according to an online list.
None of them have one word. [0%]
414 of them have two words. [89.8%]
45 of them have three words. [9.8%]
2 of them have four words. [0.4%]
The two four-word street names are BLACKWALL TUNNEL NORTHERN APPROACH and MARY LE BOW WAY.
One is an arterial road and the other is a path through a private play area near the Limehouse Cut.
They're both in the National Street Gazetteer so they're both officially-named streets.
But they are very much in the minority.
I moved on to the London borough of Haringey.
That felt fairly representative.
It has approximately 1400 streets, according to the Gazetteer.
3 of them have one word. [0.1%]
1254 of them have two words. [91.7%]
107 of them have three words. [7.8%]
3 of them have four words. [0.2%]
Haringey's four-word street names: HEART OF HALE LANE, THE GROVE LYNTON ROAD, TOWN HALL APPROACH ROAD
I moved on to the London borough of Greenwich.
That also felt fairly representative.
It has approximately 2000 streets, according to the Gazetteer.
28 of them have one word. [1.4%]
1761 of them have two words. [89.4%]
166 of them have three words. [8.4%]
11 of them have four words. [0.6%]
2 of them have five words. [0.1%]
1 of them has six words. [<0.1%]
Greenwich's four-word street names: BLACKWALL TUNNEL SOUTHERN APPROACH, BLEAK HILL KINGS HIGHWAY, DUKE OF WELLINGTON AVENUE, OLD POST OFFICE LANE, PRINCE OF ORANGE LANE, PRINCE OF WALES ROAD, ROCHESTER WAY RELIEF ROAD, ROCHESTER WAY SERVICE ROAD, ST MARY MAGDALENE CRESCENT, VANBRUGH PARK ROAD WEST Greenwich's five-word street names: SIDCUP ROAD SERVICE ROAD EASTBOUND, SIDCUP ROAD SERVICE ROAD WESTBOUND Greenwich's six-word street name: ACADEMY ROAD WOOLWICH COMMON SLIP ROAD
The two 5-wordnames are very much a technicality, and residents on that stretch of the A2 just call it Sidcup Road. And the 6-word name is a 20m slip road on the edge of Woolwich Common with no houses and no street signs. Effectively the maximum name length here is four words.
As a summary...
LONDON E3 Two word names 90%
HARINGEY Two word names 92%
GREENWICH Two word names 89%
In the three areas I've investigated, about 90% of street names have two words.
And about 8% of street names have three words.
One-word and four-word street names are uncommon (maybe more ones than fours).
Nationally I suspect about 90% of street names have two words.
Just under 10% of street names have three words (a lot are named after people or saints).
And there are probably more one-worders than four-worders, but still less than 1%.
I remain interested in identifying any London street names of five words or more.
Even across the wider country.
n.b. Streets with addresses and/or streetsigns preferred.
n.b. Hyphens don't make separate words.
London Five word street names: St. John's Wood High Street NW8, King Edward The Third Mews SE16 Six word street names: Seven word street names:
rest of UK Five word street names: There And Back Again Lane BS8, Coat of Arms Bridge Road CV3, Old Bank of England Court NR2, Laurens Van Der Post Way TN23, Home Park Mill Link Road WD4, Dick O' The Banks Road DT2, Hall I' Th' Wood Lane BL2, Top O' Th' Close Road OL14, Top O' Th' Hill Road OL14 Six word street names: St Martins at Oak Wall Lane NR3 Seven word street names: Eight word street names: The Ocean At The End Of The Lane PO4
