Odonymy in France

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
See also: Odonymy

This article deals with the conventions and uses of odonymy in France.

History[]

Corner of rue de Turenne in the 3 th  district of Paris: the plaque mentions the current street name, while its former name - Street Boucherat - is still visible, carved in stone of the building.

It is possible to distinguish several eras where we observe a similar typology of street names on French territory:

Middle ages[]

At the end of the 13th century, with the expansion and population of cities like Paris, the need is felt to separate the houses from each other. The names respond at this time to a functional logic. The name of the road is that of the place it serves, this place being religious ("place de l'Eglise", "rue des Capucins") or civil ("place du marché", "rue des Bouchers", often names in reference to the trades which are grouped together in a street which takes the name or "houses where the sign hangs"), and so on.[1]

From 1600, on an idea of the Duke of Sully, the streets adopted names that had no direct connection with the designated place, while their name gradually became a public and royal monopoly: according to researcher Dominique Badariotti, the latter "is therefore exercised as best it can, functioning better in Paris than in the provinces and valuing the powerful of the kingdom or regional notables" [2]

Statistics[]

Rue de l'Église, Ensisheim.

Occurrences[]

In 2016 in France, the following 15 odonyms are the most frequently cited on street maps.[3]

Most common odonyms in France in 2009
# Road in French Road in English Occurrences
1 Rue de l'Église Church Street 7,965
2 Church Square 5,755
3 Great Street 3,943
4 Rue du Moulin 3,566
5 Town Hall Square 3,430
6 Castle Street 2,963
7 School Street 2,779
8 Station Road 2,771
9 Town Hall Street 2,672
10 Main Street 2,452
11 Stade Street 2,421
12 Rue de la Fontaine 2,346
13 Pasteur Street 2,020
14 Garden Street 1,755
15 Rue Victor-Hugo 1,621

Dates[]

Several odonyms recalling important dates in the history of France also approach or exceed a thousand occurrences, if we combine the types of roads and the spelling variants; among others:[original research?]

Terms[]

  • Cul de sac

References[]

  1. ^ Jean-Pierre Leguay, Ouest France, 1984, p. 104.
  2. ^ Badariotti, Dominique (2002). "Les noms de rue en géographie. Plaidoyer pour une recherche sur les odonymes / Street names, an argument for a geographic research". Annales de géographie. 111 (625): 285–302. doi:10.3406/geo.2002.1658.
  3. ^ Garnier, Mathieu (12 April 2016). "Ces 200 personnalités sont les stars des rues françaises". Slate.fr (in French). Retrieved 26 March 2021.

See also[]

  • Street name
Retrieved from ""