What's in a Prague street name

Now, where the heck was I?

Oh, OK. Návršní was built in 1920.

Location-based name time: ‘navrch’ is an adverb, meaning something is ‘on top’. Usually, an adverb derives from an adjective, but this seems to be the reverse – ‘navršní’ is the adjective, and the street is, yes, high up.

I quite like the fact that ‘navrch’ can also be translated as ‘to boot’ (Je hloupý a navrch drzý = He is stupid and cheeky to boot), but sadly this is not relevant to the street name.

Until 1935, Navršní was called Klostermannova, after Karel Klostermann (1848-1923), a German-Czech writer who wrote under the name ‘Faustin’. He’s still got a street named after him in Modřany.

I’m a little bit sceptical that the street was already named in 1920 – it’s not particularly usual for someone to have a street named after them during their lifetime, and my eyebrows have been similarly raised in other cases in the past.