What's in a Prague street name
Every street in Prague, one by one.
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I could talk about myself for ages, or I could point out that https://english.radio.cz/ed-ley-englishman-recording-stories-pragues-streets-one-one-8806941 is over two years old but still largely stands (other than the Twitter links).
Author: Ed
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Pacovská was built in 1941. Pacov is a town of about 4,700 inhabitants in Vysočina Region, 17 kilometres northwest of Pelhřimov. It flourished during the 1400s and the 1500s, gaining a coat of arms in 1519 and being designated a manor town in 1597. It eventually became the property of the Discalced Carmelites (find out…
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Olbrachtova was built in 1962. Welcome to the Krč era! Karel Zeman (bear with me) was born in Semily, near Liberec, in 1882. His father, Antonín, was a lawyer who also wrote novels under the name of Antal Stašek (this will be relevant in a future post). Even while studying at the gymasium in Dvůr…
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Mirotická was built in 1988. Mirotice is a town of 1,200 people which, like yesterday’s Čimelice (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2026/03/28/prague-4-day-344-cimelicka/), is in Písek District in South Bohemia. The earliest known written mention is from 1254, by which time it was already a royal town. Also in common with Čimelice, Mirotice was marked by events occurring in the final…
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Čimelická was built in 1988. Čimelice is a village of about 1,000 inhabitants in Písek District, about 25 kilometres south-east of Písek (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/03/19/prague-3-day-175-pisecka/) and about 87 km south of Prague. The earliest written mention we have is from the 1400s; it is literally the village of Čmel’s people, although we’re not sure who this Čmel…
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Chýnovská was built in 1972. Chýnov is a town of 2,600 people in South Bohemia, eleven kilometres to the east of Tábor (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2025/02/06/prague-4-day-26-taborska/). Before the town existed, there was a hillfort of the same name, associated with the Slavník dynasty (circa 981) if we believe Kosmas and his Chroncicle (circa over 120 years later). It…
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Durychova was built in 1976. Until 1995, the street was called Dolejšího, after Vojtěch Dolejší (1903-1972), a Communist journalist who worked for Rudé právo, among other publications, and was chairman of the Czechoslovak Union of Journalists from 1957 to 1963. Jaroslav Durych was born in Hradec Králové (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/06/24/prague-3-day-176-hradecka/). He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine…
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Růženínská was built in 1981. We start this story in Chocerady, a town of about 1,400 people, 27 kilometres southeast of Prague. Chocerady has five municipal parts; the second-largest of these is called Vlkovec (with 169 inhabitants, it’s a lot smaller than the largest, also called Chocerady, and which has 863 inhabitants). Vlkovec was once…
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U Nového dvora was built in 1927. Repetition time: this one is by the ‘new court’ that a much longer road around the corner is also named after: https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2026/01/11/prague-4-day-276-novodvorska/.
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Na Borovém was built in 1930. A ‘bor’ is a pine; ‘borový’ is therefore the adjective, and a ‘borový les’ is a pine forest. There was once one round here, eventually replaced by the Krč housing estate. The forest was generally known as ‘Borový’ (no les), hence the street name. Obviously, that forest is long…
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U družstva Tempo was built in 1935. A ‘družstvo’ is a cooperative, or a housing cooperation. Those of you who’ve been following the series for a while may remember https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2025/03/28/prague-4-day-60-druzstevni-ochoz/, where I spoke about how the street was named after said cooperatives (who built its houses). There were then various streets named after specific cooperatives,…
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Slepá II was built in 1935. This is, predictably, the sequel to yesterday’s https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2026/03/18/prague-4-day-336-slepa-i/. So here’s some vocabulary to compensate. The ‘slepé střevo’ is the blind gut, or the caecum, which is joined to the appendix. If you can hear a sound right now, it’s me realising it’s taken me until 2026 to realise why…
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Slepá I was built in 1935. ‘Slepá’ most commonly translates as ‘blind’ (for those wondering, ‘slepá bába’ is ‘blind man’s buff’. Things that are not part of the animal kingdom that can be blind include, of course, alleys. Therefore, a ‘slepá ulice’, such as this one, is a ‘blind alley’, a ‘dead end’ or a…
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V zahradní čtvrti was built in 1935. This district (‘čtvrť) has a lot of nice houses. Although I wouldn’t particularly recommend performing internet searches to see if you can afford them. These nice houses are often accompanied by nice gardens (‘zahrady’). Hence this street being ‘in the garden district’. Looking for this info has led to me…
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Toušeňská was built in 1980. Lázně Toušeň is a town in the current-day Prague East district, with a population of 1,500. The oldest gold object ever found in Central Europe – an earring from the Řivnáč culture, dating from about BCE 3,000 – was discovered here. Its name means ‘Toušen’s hillfort’, and it’s feminine –…
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K Novému dvoru was built in 1925. K Novému dvoru is named after the former farmstead Nový dvůr (New Court), as is the nearby main road, Novodvorská (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2026/01/11/prague-4-day-276-novodvorska/). From 1925 to 1930, the street was called Mikoláše Aleše, after one of the greatest Czech painters; you can learn more about him on https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/10/22/prague-1-day-210-alsovo-nabrezi-ales-embankment/ (which is…
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Na příčce was built in 1938. A ‘příčka’ is… well, all kinds of things. Take your pick from ‘crossbar’, ‘rung’, spoke’, ‘dividing wall’, ‘partition’, or ‘crosspiece’, and feel free to add your own. In this case, the street was apparently meant to be a dividing line between Na Borovém (now called Štúrova; see on https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2026/03/05/prague-4-day-325-sturova/)…
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Vzdušná was built in 1941 (I think). There’s greenery around here, and there no doubt used to be a lot more of it, especially as none of these streets I’ve been covering lately seem to have sprung up earlier than Czechoslovakia did. This particular street was built on a plateau near the forest. One nice…
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Dobřejovická was buiilt in 1980. Dobřejovice is a village in Prague-East, about 18 km south-east of the centre of the city. The earliest extant information of it in writing is from 1309. It has about 1,300 inhabitants and a nice chateau, although, given it’s privately owned, you’re unlikely to be able to visit it unless…
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Na rovinách was built in 1925. It’s flat round here. And the street is, as its name says, on a plain (or, as it’s in the plural, ‘plains’). We’ve been in very similar name territory in Prague 4 already: https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2025/09/09/prague-4-day-167-v-rovinach/.
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Na Větrově was built in 1925. Větrov, deriving from ‘vítr’ (wind), is a name popularly given to hills which are bare of vegetation and quite, yes, windy. This area was once called Větrov for that reason. If you think we’ve been on this topic before, we have – see https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/08/25/prague-2-day-113-apolinarska/ for a hill in the…
What's in a Prague street name 