Street names

I grew up in Sackville, N.B., in a house on West Avenue.  It was named after a guy called West, but it actually was on the west side of town!

You can learn something about a town from its street names.  One of the oldest roads is called Charlotte Street, probably after Charlotte of Mecklenburgh, wife of George III.  Sackville has three streets named after Canada's Governors-General:  Lansdowne, Lorne and Dufferin.  The town was a big Methodist center, and there's a Union Street that was probably named for the 1926 union of Methodists, Congregationalists and some Presbyterians that produced the United Church of Canada.

In my part of Toronto two of the newest streets are called Acores and Minho, reflecting the growing Portuguese community. There are also several streets with a "wood" name:  Oakwood, Wychwood, Cherrywood, Maplewood.  My own street is Greensides Avenue, which sounds pretty bland, like something a developer would come up with to sell real estate.

In St. John's, Nfld., they have a Strawberry Marsh Road.  That's a nice name for a street.