When does second come before first? When counting street names.
No, this is not an Abbott and Costello routine. It’s a true, if hard to believe, fact. The most common street name in America is Second, followed by Third and then First, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
While you’d presume there would not be a Second Street without a First Street, that’s not always the case. As FiveThirtyEight explains, in many cases the numerical naming of streets begins with the number two, after the main roadway is given a name such as Main.
Speaking of which, Main is the seventh most common street name in America, and the second-most popular non-numerical name, following Park. Washington takes first place in roads named after people, while nature-inspired names are well represented. In addition to Park, Oak (9th), Pine (11th), Maple (12th), Cedar (13th), Elm (15th), Lake (19th) and Hill (20th) are all in the top 20.
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About six years ago, The Washington Post took a crack at determining the country’s most common street names. The process reveals some interesting quirks about ranking road names. For example, should a Main Street that becomes South or North Main Street be considered one road or two? And what about a road that’s split by a park or some other sizable obstruction? Is that one road, or is it multiple roads depending on the number of its segments?
Common Street Names in the Northeast
This article from BestLife uses the Post’s data to identify the most common street name in each state. And we noticed a trend across the Northeast. The most common street name in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont is Park. Meanwhile, Main is Maine’s and Maple is New Hampshire’s.
Just remember: the Post didn’t count a North Main St. and South Main St. as separate roads if they were connected – so your state’s most popular street name might actually be Main if you have a lot of directional prefixes and suffixes attached to these streets.
Have some thoughts about the most popular road names in the nation? Weigh in with a comment below!
This post was originally published in 2018 and has been updated.
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Interesting that Broadway didn’t make the list and yet NYC has 3 of them – the famous one that goes from the Battery to Yonkers, one in Brooklyn, and one in Queens – and Broadway continues into Yonkers, so they get credit for a Broadway too –
And there are probably a few Main Streets that are one road that goes thru multiple towns – no problem as long as someone or a delivery doesn’t get misdirected to the wrong street/town –
2nd Street is most common because it follows whatever is the first street in that town. Besides Main Street, it is often Front Street or River Street – many towns border rivers or streams. Or oceans, lakes and sounds. Those words are often made into the names of the first streets in those towns. Lake St, Ocean Ave, Soundview Ave.
How about Church Street? Or South Road?