Street Naming and Numbering Overview

David Caldwell, who has worked within local government and with address data for over three decades, gives a basic overview of street naming and numbering.

Street Numbering

The best advice I've encountered regarding understanding street numbering involves adopting the perspective of a postman tasked with delivering mail to every house on a street. This approach makes you realise the importance of a logical and sequential numbering system. Imagining yourself traversing a street plan in the most efficient manner helps visualise the best approach to numbering a street and helps services locate properties quickly.

Unlucky Numbers

Number 13 is often omitted when numbering a street due to its unlucky association. Another ill fated number is number four. This is because in Chinese languages such as Cantonese it sounds like the word for death. Houses with these numbers can be harder to sell and may command lower prices than other numbers.

Cul-de-sacs

Cul-de-sacs are closed streets characterised by the absence of a through road, eliminating the possibility for future road extensions.

The term "Cul-de-sac" is French for "dead end," literally meaning "bottom of the sack."
Names of cul-de-sacs should conclude with the suffix "Close," "Court," or "End" to indicate their nature.
These roads are often numbered sequentially in a clockwise direction, starting from one.
In cul-de-sacs housing many properties, odd numbers should be assigned to the left side and even numbers to the right.

Pedestrian Streets

These should end in "Path" or "Walk."

Through Roads or Thoroughfares

Through roads, or thoroughfares, follow a more complex numbering system. Numbering should begin sequentially from the entry point that connects to the most significant adjacent road, starting with '1'. Odd numbers such as 1, 3 and 5 are allocated to the left side of the street, and even numbers such as 2, 4 and 6 to the right. In instances where the thoroughfare intersects with roads of equal importance, numbering is determined based on which end of the road is closest to the centre of the settlement in which the road is located.
Through roads should end with the suffixes "Avenue," "Drive," "Grove," "Lane," "Road," "Street," or "Way."

Residential Flats

For residential flats in the UK, each building should be identified by both a specific name and its street address. The chosen name for the building should ideally conclude with a suffix such as "Apartments," "Court," "Heights," "House," "Mansions," "Point," or "Tower," depending on the nature of the structure.
Within the building, flats should be numbered in a manner that is sequential and logical, ideally following a clockwise direction. This numbering should commence from the flat that is nearest to the building's primary access point, be it an entrance, lift, or stairwell.
For buildings that have multiple storeys, it is recommended to incorporate the floor number as a prefix to the individual flat numbers. This means flats on the ground floor would be designated as '01', '02', and so on, to distinguish them clearly from those on the first floor, which would be numbered '11', '12', and so forth. This prefixing helps locate the position of flats within the building, aiding not only mail delivery but also emergency services.

Commercial Properties

Commercial properties should be assigned permanent names that do not depend on the current occupying company. In short, buildings should not be named after the company.

Naming Streets

Street names should not be duplicated within the same locality, town, or post town. They should not be repeated within the same local authority or occur in a neighbouring authority’s area.
To avoid confusion, street names that sound phonetically similar, such as ‘Crondall Road’ and ‘Cromwell Road’, should be avoided.
Streets should not be given offensive or inappropriate names that could include innuendo or double entendres.
Road names should not be unaesthetic, such as 'Sewage Works Lane'.
Roads should not be named after any living person in case they fall into disrepute during their lifetime.
Streets close to each other should not have the same name with only a different suffix, for example, "Turner Road" and "Turner Avenue."

Street names should not be more than three sylables long, difficult to spell or be hard to pronounce, this includes street prefixes such as Wynd.
Apostrophes are a contentious subject when it comes to naming. In my opinion they should be avoided as they cause problems with data integrity, others may disagree.

Postal Addresses and Postcodes

Postal addresses are issued by the council, but postcodes are assigned by Royal Mail only after a resident or developer notifies them that they have occupied the building.