Odonymy in France

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

See also: Odonymy

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	Place de l'Église	Church Square	5,755
3	Grande Rue, Grand-Rue	Great Street	3,943
4	Rue du Moulin	Mill Street	3,566
5	Place de la Mairie	Town Hall Square	3,430
6	Rue du Château	Castle Street	2,963
7	Rue des Écoles	Schools Street	2,779
8	Rue de la Gare	Station Street	2,771
9	Rue de la Mairie	Town Hall Street	2,672
10	Rue Principale	Main Street	2,452
11	Rue du Stade	Stadium Street	2,421
12	Rue de la Fontaine	Fountain Street	2,346
13	Rue Pasteur	Pasteur Street	2,020
14	Rue des Jardins	Gardens Street	1,755
15	Rue Victor-Hugo	Victor Hugo Street	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?]}

• 19 March - End of the Algerian War
• 8 May - Victory in Europe Day
• 14 July - Bastille Day
• 4 September - 4 September 1870, the date Napoleon III fell and the Third French Republic was proclaimed.
• 11 November - Armistice of 11 November 1918

Terms

• Cul de sac