What's in a (street) name?

Negotiations continue on our first choice house...we may have to walk away on this one. I am incredibly grateful I can trust God and my husband on this!

One interesting thing about this house is the name of the street it is on: Killingdeer. I Googled it to see if it is a reference to something else, but the only hits were related to that specific street. It is a unique name...with a somewhat negative connotation (although the hunters in my family probably find it amusing). I did discover that killdeer is the name of a bird, but the street is not Killdeer - it's definitely Killingdeer.

Which leaves me thinking: who comes up with street names? I've seen nice developments that go on themes; Camelot, for example, might have a King Arthur Rd., a Guinevere Ct., a Round Table Cir., and an Excalibur Ln. But when houses in an area are built at different times by different builders, who decides?

And here's another question: what would you like to name a street, or a set of streets in a development, if you could?

PS On our honeymoon in the North Carolina mountains, we drove by several dirt roads labeled Hicks. No kidding!

Photo Credit: kittyz202