What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on Twitter on 12 November 2022.

Helénská was built in 1910.

Until 1937, this was Doudlebská, after Doudleby, a village in České Budějovice District that was the centre of its region until České Budějovice was founded in 1265.

The Helénové, meanwhile, are the Hellenes – the inhabitants of Ancient Greece.

‘Greece’ itself, as a term, comes not from Greek but from Latin; the Greeks call their country Ελλάδα (Hellada), or, more officially, Ελληνική Δημοκρατία (Helliniki Dimokratia), the Greek Republic. The H is silent in both cases.

The term is derived from Hellen (Έλλην), a mythological figure.

His father survived a flood created by Zeus with the purpose of wiping out humanity (I don’t Noah bout you, but this sounds familiar), and Hellen’s three sons founded the Greek race between them.

This is the only Greek Street in Vinohrady (although there’s an Athénská in Prague 15), so let’s see if there are any famous Greek Czechs.

Politician Jana Michailidu, who finished fourth in the leadership contest for the Pirate Party in early 2022, is of Greek origin: https://www.pirati.cz/lide/janka-michailidu/ (strong suspicion that link won’t work anymore, given she left the party in November 2024, following her disagreement with the results of a further leadership election).

Martha and Tena Elefteriadu are a singing duo whose Greek parents settled in Czechoslovakia in 1950. Here they are in 1982, giving their all to a Czech version of Making Your Mind Up by Bucks Fizz:

And Tena is the mother of successful rapper Ektor:

It seems that Czech-Greek relations have traditionally been quite calm, except when you put the words ‘Zeman’, ‘speaks’ and ‘debt crisis’ together: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-eurozone-greece-diplomacy-idAFKBN0U51X620151222/

Fittingly, the Greek Embassy is on the south-east of the street.

Flags really like not flying just when you’re trying to take a photo of them, don’t they?

Finally, I hope nobody takes it badly that the first photo that I think of whenever I think of trips to Greece is this one (hotel breakfast, 2019).