What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on X on 31 January 2024.

In the early days of the New Town, written sources refer to the street as ‘nová ulice faráře svatojindřišského’, or the ‘New Street of the parish priest of St Henry’s’.

This was partly because the street was next to the church on Jindřišská (coming up on day 131), and also partly because the concept of a nice catchy name that would fit onto a nice red and white street sign hadn’t been invented yet.

Other names given to the street include ‘Na okřesu’ and ‘Na otesu’ (meaning not certain in either case), and ‘Zadní Růžová’, which is a bit clearer (see https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/09/18/prague-1-day-128-ruzova/).

A půjčovna is a ‘rental shop’. If you live here, you may have seen the words půjčovna aut (rent-a-car) around town.

It can also be used to refer to a ‘pawn shop’ (the more common Czech term for this is zastavárna), where you can get a loan in exchange for some kind of collateral.

While the first pawnshops were created in China about 3,000 years ago, it was in the 13th and 14th centuries that Italian moneylenders, typically from Lombardy, started to operate pawnshops across Western Europe.

This is why, if you go to Poland or Ukraine, you will see lots of ‘lombard’ signs around – that’s the term for ‘pawn shop’ in both languages.

Prague didn’t get a pawnshop until 1747, however, and this was located in the Old Town before moving to this street in 1846, taking over the premises of a short-lived theatre.

Number 4 on the street is a local branch of the Pštrossova Elementary Art School.

While number 10 is on the site of the former pawn shop. It looks like it needs a hug.

And number 8 – which I didn’t get a picture of – was the first home of Olympic gold medallists Emil Zátopek and Dana Zátopková after they got married in 1948: https://www.denik.cz/cestujeme-doma/po-stopach-legend-mista-spjata-s-emilem-a-danou-zatopkovymi-21220919.html