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).
Category: 1920
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Hornokrčská was built in 1920. The street didn’t have an official name until 1935; apparently, it was ‘unofficially’ known as Zborovská until then, whatever ‘unofficially’ means. We’re about a year from writing about a street in Prague 5 that is still called Zborovská, but, for now, Zboriv and its WW1 battle get a mention on…
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Krčská was built in 1920. Until 1935, it was called Kozinova, after Jan Sladký-Kozina (1652–1695), leader of the Chod peasant rebellion. He’s still got a street in Hostivař, but the uprising is covered a little on https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/01/30/prague-2-day-25-chodska/ (and do check out the Chods – interesting people). Meanwhile, the first mention of Krč that we know of…
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Jaurisova was built in 1920. Pankrác Jauris was born in 1847, and was a mayor of Michle. There’ll be plenty of Michle coming up in future posts – indeed, this street is partially there, partially in Nusle. So, for now, I’ll keep it brief and say that the earliest written mention we have of Michle…
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Kloboučnická was nameless until 1920. Our starting point is ‘klobouk’, which means ‘hat’. A diminutive form of this is ‘klobouček’, which means ‘cap’ (i.e. a little hat). Meanwhile, a ‘kloboučnictví’ would either be a place where hats are made, or where they’re sold. Apparently, this trade is called ‘millinery’, which may be something everybody else…
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Družstevní was built in 1920. The street name is an adjective which derives from ‘družstvo’, meaning ‘association’, ‘collective’ or ‘co-op’. For many, the word has communist connotations – a ‘zemědělské družstvo’ is what we would call a cooperative farm, although it also translates as ‘agricultural cooperative’, and, as Dairy Farmers of America and similar organisations…
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Originally published on X on 1 April 2023. Dřevná was built in 1920. Dřevná is the adjective deriving from dřevo, wood, and that noise you can hear right now is me realising I’ve already unwittingly written about this one, because the people of the district used to make a living by trading in wood: https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/08/26/prague-2-day-121-na-vytoni/…
What's in a Prague street name 