What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on X on 20 March 2023.

Melounová was built in 1890.

Confession: I sometimes get *really* nervous about getting the diacritics on these street names wrong.

So it was something of a comfort to find out that, until 2019, the street sign here was incorrect (Melounova): https://encyklopedie.praha2.cz/ulice/75-melounova

Melounova would imply the existence of a Mr Meloun at some point; Melounová implies the existence of something else.

And that something else was a house called U zlatého melounu (‘At the golden melon’), not to be confused with the house of the same name just off Old Town Square.

The existence of the house in the Old Town also means that Googling the one in the New Town is proving to be a bit of a pain in the ass (also, Google Maps hasn’t got the 2018 memo yet, and still thinks the street is called Melounova).

It seems the house doesn’t exist anymore, but either I’m searching in all the wrong places or its destruction is remarkably undocumented for somewhere so central. Ah well.