Naming Subdivisions

Real estate subdivision developers have something of an arms race going on when it comes to selecting names of their subdivisions. They try to come up with the toniest, most distinguished names possible! Now all is supposed to be fair in war, politics, and real estate; but sometimes subdivision nomenclature reaches absurd heights or depths.

Here are a few that I've encountered: Brookshire, Sheffield Heights, Fartscove, Copper Creek, Vinegaroon, Cypress Mill, Eagle Bluff, Poverty Point, Hunter's Point, Bluffhaven, Bonita Grove, and so on. Obviously, some are seemingly more distinguished than others. Would you really want to live in Fartscove or Poverty Point? Biologically-inclined people might know or discover that a vinegaroon is a nasty spider, lending an ick! association to the place! Hunter's Point might dissuade the animal rights people, and so on.

One property development near Birmingham was named Chateau Manor Estates, coupling no less than three commendatory names in one without including any fourth element that might detract from their splendor! Is that an example of the hat trick in naming something?

Anyway, here are some of the more successful ones in Raleigh: Oakwood, Stonehenge, Briefcreek, Five Points, and North Hills. You will look in vain for a real deal Sequoyah Redwood in Sequoyah Hills, though!

In Knoxville, there's Sequoyah Hills, Fourth and Gill, West Hills, Forest Heights, and Farragut. For some reason known only to them they named a neighborhood after a minor Civil War character.

In New Orleans, there's Lakeview, Metarie, Uptown, Carrollton, Gentilly, and Lake Terrace.

However, real estate people sometimes are an unimaginative lot, and they come up with examples like these. Perhaps they need some creative person's help, as Marianne Moore was supposed to have provided (and ignored) when it came to choose the name of what became known as the Edsel.

For some reason or other, developers feel that using a faux olde tyme spelling adds to the class of the setting: