Naming streets and neighborhoods in Saskatoon tricky business

Watch above: there is a process to naming streets and neighbourhoods in Saskatoon

SASKATOON – It’s probably one of the last things you think about when buying a home, the street name or neighbourhood name.

With a number of new subdivisions developing, where do these names come from? They’re not drawn from a hat.

“I think it’s a very serious part, I think people a lot of times don’t realize how seriously I take this, it takes hours,” said Saskatoon Mayor Don Atchison.

New developments don’t happen overnight and decisions on what to call them don’t either.

“Not only do they help mark our communities for years to come but they also honour individuals and events and places that have been important in making Saskatoon the city that it is today,” said Zach Jeffries, Ward 10 Saskatoon city councillor.

It’s a process; names are sent to the city, they go through a naming committee and a master list is taken to council. The mayor has the final say on streets, council on neighbourhoods.

“When the opportunity becomes available sometimes it is the perfect name for the perfect location and sometimes that’s why they’re not used, we also look at the length of time peoples names have been on the list and it takes a long time,” said Atchison.

While the city has lists of names so to do commercial developers.

“Evergreen was named because there was actually two rows of evergreens that was preserved and maintained that neighbourhood character. We’ve got other areas, Silverspring relates to a spring that was in that area at that time, Forest Grove is actually all tree names, they do have some meaning, they do have some purpose,” said Jeffries.

With new developments like Elk Point, Kensington and Aspen Ridge breaking ground, naming is almost becoming a full time job.

“With the pace that we’ve been selling out lots in Saskatoon here, we have a lot of neighbourhoods that are going to be coming on line in the next five to 10 years,” said Jeffries.