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: Writers
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Tajovského was built in 1969. Jozef Alojz Gregor was born in Tajov, a village near Banská Bystrica, in 1874 – ten years after someone else we recently wrote about was born there (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2026/09/11/prague-4-day-442-murgasova/). This is the house he grew up in. After he finished school in Banská Bystrica in 1889, he trained to be a…
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Hečkova was built in 1975. František Hečko was born in Suchá nad Parnou, near Trnava in Slovakia, in 1905; his schooling and tertiary education took him to Modra, Bratislava, Košice and Prague. He started publishing poetry and prose in various Slovak periodicals; these often covered social themes and village life. His first collection of poems,…
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Kukučínova was built in 1969. Its spelling was corrected from the original Kukučinova in 1999. Matej Bencúr was born in Jasenová, Slovakia, near Dolný Kubín, in 1860. He went to school in several towns, ultimately completing his schooling in Sopron, which is now in Hungary (cue a quick photo dump from a wonderful two-week holiday…
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U kola was built before 1935. This is the third part of the wheel trilogy that started on https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2026/08/30/prague-4-day-430-paprskova/ and continued on https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2026/08/31/prague-4-day-431-v-kole/. In 1912, a late Art Nouveau family house was built here for the family of the lawyer and writer Antal Stašek (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2026/05/07/prague-4-day-378-antala-staska/), who we’ve discussed a lot in Krč. It was named…
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Zachova was built before 1935. Until 1952, it was called U krčské vodárny III. I’ve promised before that we’ll get onto the Krčská vodárna soon enough, and that still holds. Zach, meanwhile, is another character from the novel O ševci Matoušovi a jeho přátelích, which has its own post on https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2026/05/13/prague-4-day-381-sevce-matouse/. And whose author also…
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Pecharova was built in 1935. Until 1952, it was called U dětského útulku (‘At the children’s home’), after Dětský útulek sv. Terezičky (St Theresa’s), which opened here in 1929. The building was ultimately demolished in 1989. Meanwhile, it turns out that today’s street name is a continuation of yesterday’s post about O ševci Matoušovi a…
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Ševce Matouše was built in 1935. I just wrote this entire post, then it disappeared when I was about to post it, so I feel like I was also built in 1935 right now. Until 1952, it was called U krčské vodárny IV, which we’ll get around to soon enough, as there’s still a street…
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Antala Staška was built in 1935. Until 1952, it was called U krčské vodárny II, which we’ll get onto in an imminent-ish post. Antonín Zeman was born in Stanový, a village near Jablonec, in 1843, as the eldest of ten children. He went to school in Jičín (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/02/26/prague-3-day-158-jicinska/) and Kraków. He then studied law in…
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Halasova was built in 1962. František Halas was born in Brno-Husovice in 1901. His parents were textile workers; his father had been imprisoned for his communist beliefs, and his mother died in 1908. These experiences would greatly influence his career as a poet. When WW1 started, Halas’s father was called up to the front, where…
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Tilschové was built in 1962. Anna Maria Tilschová was born in Prague in 1873. Her father was a doctor of law; her mother was the daughter of Ferdinand Urbánek (1812-87), a sugar entrepreneur and organiser of cultural life in Bohemia and Moravia. In 1895, Anna Maria married her cousin, Emanuel Tilsch, also a lawyer; they…
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Poláčkova was built in 1962. Karel Poláček was born in Rychnov nad Kněžnou in 1892; his father was a Jewish merchant. He also went to school there, but was expelled from grammar school for behaving badly and getting poor grades. Eventually, he ended up finishing his schooling on Truhlářská (AKA one of the streets that…
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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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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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Věkova was built in 1933. After a brief detour, we’re back in ‘characters from novels by Alois Jirásek’ territory. František Ladislav Věk is a Czech patriot in the novel titled, well, F. L. Věk, and described (to an extent) on https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2025/12/02/prague-4-day-247-vrbova/. He is a student – and, later in the novel, a merchant from Dobruška,…
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Skaláků was built in 1975. The Alois Jirásek (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/09/01/prague-2-day-154-jiraskovo-namesti/) series continues. Skaláci (1876) is Jirásek’s novel about the Peasant’s Uprising which took place 101 years earlier. I won’t go into huge detail on that (spoiler: the peasants were still peasants after it), as it’s sure to come up in other posts. For the title of the…
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Machovcova was built in 1935. Until 1952, the street was called Pod myslivnou II, after a myslivna (gamekeeper’s lodge). As with yesterday, we’re spending some time in Jiráskova čtvrť, and so this is another street named after a character from a novel by Alois Jirásek (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/09/01/prague-2-day-154-jiraskovo-namesti/). This time, the novel is called Temno (Darkness), and…
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Vrbova was built in 1935. Originally, it was two streets – one called Pod myslivnou (Under the gamekeeper’s lodge), and one called Ve studeném (a name we’ll get on to before we leave Braník). They were joined and renamed in 1973. The villa district covering parts of Braník and Hodkovičky (which is up next in this…
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Pujmanové was built in 1962. Marie Hennerová was born in Prague’s New Town in 1893. Her father, Kamil Henner, was a professor at the Law Faculty of Charles University, while her brother, Kamil, later became a renowned neurologist. Moving to České Budějovice in 1912, she married Vlastislav Zátka, a lawyer; the marriage was short-lived, and…
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Lomnického was built in 1900. Šimon Lomnický was born into a poor family in Lomnice nad Lužnicí in 1552, but, thanks to Vilém z Rožmberka, a noble and one-time treasurer of Bohemia, he was able to have an education. He wrote a series of books about the seven deadly sins and their moral impact, including…
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Originally published on X on 31 May 2024. For this one, we’ve got to start with a writer, Jaroslav Fogler, who was born on Benátská (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/08/28/prague-2-day-127-benatska/) in 1907, although the family moved out of Prague shortly afterwards. After his father’s death in 1914, he moved back to Prague with his mother, living on Korunní (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/12/23/prague-3-day-187-korunni/).…
