Stupid and confusing place names

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kingdragonfly

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#3430904 4-Nov-2025 16:46

Handsomedan:
In Warkworth, north of Auckland.

A street named "Earlsway".

Not Earls Way or Earlsway Rd/St/Tce/Dr/Gr or whatever

This can actually cause a problem for some databases that are excessively normalized. It's not unheard of to split a single address line as this

Street Number
Street Number Suffix
Street Name
Street Name (Secondary)
Street Type
Unit / Suite / Apartment

It's a data-design anti-pattern. Basically a common but bad way of organizing or structuring data. Something that seems like a good idea at first, but leads to problems later in performance, usability, or maintainability.

It's sometime called "Denormalization’s opposite problem": over-normalized or excessively decomposed.

Behodar

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#3430954 4-Nov-2025 17:01

Reminds me of Green Lane in Greenlane, although that's the opposite way around.

In Whakatane we have "The Fairway" and "The Green", and there's a "Ballantrae" in Kawerau.

shk292

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#3430959 4-Nov-2025 17:53

All the streets in my neighbourhood are named after hotels. The amusing one is Grovenor Drive, which is clearly a spelling mistake that is now entrenched. It’s the only search result if you google Grovenor

shk292

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#3430960 4-Nov-2025 17:56

I visited Warkworth recently and thought “Te honohono ki Tai Road” is pretty catchy. Glad I don’t have to spell that out every time I’m asked my address

Behodar

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#3430961 4-Nov-2025 18:02

shk292:

I visited Warkworth recently and thought “Te honohono ki Tai Road” is pretty catchy. Glad I don’t have to spell that out every time I’m asked my address

A developer tried to name one "Acacia Ave" here in 2019. The council rejected it for not meeting the requirements of an avenue, then proposed "Papakangahorohoro Rd", which violated their own policy on name lengths. After years of people calling it Acacia Ave anyway, the council finally relented and made that the official name in 2024.

SepticSceptic

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#3431094 4-Nov-2025 22:12

There's a Moontide Rd in Kumeu, west auckland.

I tend to imagine much midnight carousing of scantily clad elves and pixies, taking the unicorns for a trot.

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raytaylor

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#3431168 5-Nov-2025 11:01

gzt: There are around 110 roads called Queen Street in NZ, and a similar number called King St. Around half that number for Princes St. Similar for Nelson St. There are multiple in Auckland region alone.

https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/on-the-streets-where-we-live

Queen St has to be the winner of that one. I'm sure the couriers have stories to tell.

I have a problem with Beach Road.
Doing broadband installations, someone will call up and say they are on beach road.
In Hawkes bay we have 6 Beach Roads.
And people dont understand that Kairakau Road is different from Kairakau Beach Road.
Which means our helpdesk staff who are taking orders and creating customer accounts and installation locations are starting with bad data because they dont know to ask the customer for clarification.

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johno1234

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#3431172 5-Nov-2025 11:10

kingdragonfly:

This can actually cause a problem for some databases that are excessively normalized. It's not unheard of to split a single address line as this

Street Number
Street Number Suffix
Street Name
Street Name (Secondary)
Street Type
Unit / Suite / Apartment

It's a data-design anti-pattern. Basically a common but bad way of organizing or structuring data. Something that seems like a good idea at first, but leads to problems later in performance, usability, or maintainability.

It's sometime called "Denormalization’s opposite problem": over-normalized or excessively decomposed.

Post code is very helpful. I wouldn't be surprised if there's two roads with the same name within a post code somewhere though.

kingdragonfly

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#3431293 5-Nov-2025 17:34

In New Zealand, when a new road name is proposed, it’s checked against existing road names within the same locality and postcode to prevent duplication that cause confusion

BUT

as mentioned @raytaylor you can a lot of names that drive locals, delivery people, and emergency services crazy.

Behodar

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#3431295 5-Nov-2025 17:48

There can also be issues when places are combined, for example ABC Street, North Shore and ABC Street, Waitakere are now both ABC Street, Auckland.

floydbloke

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#3431302 5-Nov-2025 18:19

This thread highlights why the UK postcode system is so damn good.

New Zealanders, on average, have one testicle.

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roobarb

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#3431314 5-Nov-2025 20:36

tripper1000:

"The Gulf of America".

I suggest it is more useful as statement on the current administration's opinion of itself, a country where a world series includes no other nation. Other countries don't have to use the same names you do and historically have not done so. The North Sea used to be called the German Ocean, and I am not sure what it is supposed to be north of. The English Channel is La Manche in French. People in the UK still refer to The Netherlands as Hollland.

It gets more messed up with "Bayern Munich" when that is neither the actual name of the team and the English language already has the word Bavaria.

gzt

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#3431315 5-Nov-2025 20:52

I suggest it is more useful as statement on the current administration's opinion of itself, a country where a world series includes no other nation.

The World Series includes the Toronto Blue Jays. Toronto, Canada.

KiwiSurfer

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#3431348 6-Nov-2025 07:51

Behodar:

There can also be issues when places are combined, for example ABC Street, North Shore and ABC Street, Waitakere are now both ABC Street, Auckland.

They would definitely be far apart that they'd fall into different suburbs and post codes though so no problem surely for peole who write the full address correctly...

Behodar

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#3431355 6-Nov-2025 08:12

That's a big "if", as I discovered when I navigated to the one in North Shore on the map, clicked it, and clicked "Create Contact". Then I went into Contacts and clicked "Show on Map" and it took me to the one in Waitakere.

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