Thursday, Jan. 8, 1998 | 8:43 a.m.
It seems that the folks in charge of dreaming up names for Las Vegas streets have a wicked sense of humor.
What else would explain their propensity to bestow on perfectly innocent people addresses so corny, so pretentious, so bizarre, as to make them blush when forced to reveal it in public?
Consider the plight of the men who live in an area near Sun City, who at one time or another in their lives will likely have to order tools from a catalogue and tell the clerk "Just send it to me at 111 Dancing Daffodil Avenue."
Or that of single women who must instruct their dates to pick them up at their homes on "Blushing Bride Street."
And what of the poor children who, when registering for school, must admit, in writing, that they live on "Whiskey River Street"?
Here in Las Vegas, a city that seems to be vying for the dubious title of "Weird Street Name Capital of the Country," people are increasingly finding themselves living on boulevards, avenues and lanes named after liquor brands -- "Cutty Sark Street" or "Beafeater (sic) Place" -- cartoon characters --"Roadrunner Drive" or "Pocahontas Court" -- breakfast items -- "Flapjack Drive," "Coffee Pot Court" and "Cantalope Court" -- and a host of other un-street-like things.
There are street names that appear to imply something about the personalities of its residents -- "Bombastic Court," "Defiance Avenue" and "Dauntless Drive" -- names that seem to be touting a line of cruisewear or athletic apparel -- "Ellen Tracey Way," "Perry Ellis Drive," and "Reebok Terrace" -- and names that disingenuously suggest that there's an ocean nearby -- "Surf's Up Drive" and "Intercoastal Drive."
Some of these strange choices, like "My Way," "Easy Street," and "Dirt Road," undoubtedly reflect the sense of humor of the streetnamers, who are usually the builders or developers of the neighborhood.
A group in Henderson recently tried to get a residential boulevard named "Day in Court." The name was approved with one change, and is now known as "Daylin Court," says Michael Passi, a planning analyst for the city of Henderson, whose duties include approving or rejecting proposed street names.
For the most part, however, our streetnamers' penchant for peculiar names is a measure of their desperation: They're scrambling so fast to keep up with the explosive pace of growth that they've simply run out of ideas. There just aren't enough dead presidents, species of trees or birds to keep our more than 20,000 streets named.
"They're struggling really hard to come up with names," says Melanie Dobosh, chief communications specialist for the Las Vegas Fire Department, whose department is in charge of reviewing proposed street names for Clark County, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas. "We have more street names than Los Angeles, Chicago or New York." And many of our streets go by two or three different names in different sections.
Dobosh and her colleagues approve hundreds, perhaps thousands of new street names each month. Passi says he's reviewed so many, he's lost count. "We're pretty busy," he says. "Today, for example, I spent about four hours just on street names (but) sometimes it's the entire week."
In theory, the proposed street names are supposed to meet public safety guidelines, which means that they can't be foreign, difficult for the average person to pronounce in the event of an emergency, or similar to an existing street.
In reality, however, Dobosh and her group find they need to be "flexible" to keep up with the onslaught.
As a result, plenty of foreign, confusing and semi-pronounceable names -- like "Chiouis Court" -- are finding their way on to street signs.
More than a dozen Avenidas and Avenedas have appeared on the landscape, as have several French rues, like "Rue de Versailles," and Italian vias, including the redundant "Via Acquario Drive."
A lot of streetnamers seem to be making their decisions without the benefit of a dictionary. Thus we may be the only city in America to boast a "De Vinci Court," a "Jane Austin Avenue, a "Bagdad Court" and a "Carabbean Court."
Others appear to be engaged in a laughable game of one-upmanship, apparently trying to attract homebuyers with grand social aspirations, naming their streets "Awesome Court," "Better Way," "Prime Advantage Avenue" and "Achievement Place." Not a bad marketing ploy -- after all, who wouldn't want to live on the road to "Success"?
That would probably beat living on "Havoc Way," "Hemlock Circle," or "Shifting Sands Drive." Though streets like "Shark Tank Court," "Shotgun Lane," and "Hangman's Way" probably appeal to a machismo clientele, the kind that would go to great lengths to avoid living on Dancing Daffodil Avenue.
Some people apparently like the unusual things we christen our streets. Passi, for one, thinks that the area near Green Valley Parkway that bears street names inspired by old Beatles songs -- "Strawberry Fields Lane," "Magical Mystery Lane," and "Yesterday Drive" -- is "pretty cool."
But most builders know they're walking a fine line.
"I try to use names of street I would want to live on," says Jennifer Lewis, project coordinator for Lewis Homes Management Corp., who is in charge of coming up with names for the company's subdivisions. "It's getting really hard to do."
After the release of the horror movie "The Omen," which featured a young boy named Dameon who was possessed by the devil, developers of a street by the same name in the north part of the city, near Craig Road and Decatur Boulevard, decided to change it, says Maureen Cooper, who compiles "Directions," a guide to streets in Las Vegas.
"They had to change it because no one would buy on it."
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