L.A. Street Names – Los Angeles Street Names – their origins, their histories, their meanings

Welcome to L.A. Street Names, the origin stories of street names across Los Angeles County, from the shortest cul-de-sacs to the longest boulevards. Mysteries solved, myths debunked, scandals exposed, history revealed. This is an ongoing project with more than 2,000 streets – and growing. See FAQ for more information.

Featured Major Street

Saticoy Street

San Fernando Valley

In 1916, a year after the City of Los Angeles annexed the San Fernando Valley, there was a need to rename Valley roadways such as 1st Street, Central Avenue, etc. because they conflicted with existing ones in L.A. Civil engineers looked to Ventura County place names for inspiration, and thus we have Saticoy, Moorpark, Oxnard, Camarillo, Nordhoff, and Strathern streets. (A street named after Leesdale, a sugar beet dump near Oxnard, later became Victory Blvd.) Ventura County’s Saticoy, an unincorporated community, was once an ancient Chumash village; modern historians like to spell it “Sa’aqtik’oy”, but since the Ventureño Chumash language had no written form, it’s effectively the same as “Saticoy”, used by Spanish settlers by 1826. Some believe the name means “sheltered from the wind”; others have translated it as “the place is here”, “I have found it”, and “the springs”. Since the Ventureño Chumash language was killed off many years ago, we’ll never really know.

Featured Offbeat Street

Leonis Boulevard

Vernon

While John B. Leonis (1871-1953) didn’t quite run Vernon single-handedly, no one can deny the sway he held over this strange little city, rich in commerce and meager in population. Jean Baptiste Leonis was a Basque teenager who left the Pyrenees for SoCal in 1889 to work for his uncle Miguel, owner of Rancho El Escorpión. (The Leonis Adobe in Calabasas was his.) Miguel died just a month after his nephew’s arrival – he fell under the wheels of his own wagon – so Jean Baptiste, who wasn’t in his rich uncle’s will, had to make his own way. Rebranding himself “John B.”, Leonis married Adelina Frances Clos (1873-1956), a California-born Basque girl, in 1895. Three years later, the couple and their two toddlers settled in Vernon. It was rural in those days, but Leonis envisioned a town filled with factories, so with the money he made from his general store he bought more and more land, assured that it would one day make him rich. Leonis and local ranchers the Furlong brothers incorporated the City of Vernon in 1905. Initially promoting the city through boxing, baseball, and booze, Leonis oversaw its transformation into the industrial hive it is today. He also owned its bank. With such power and profit came numerous political and financial scandals, yet Leonis kept running Vernon until the early 1950s, when health woes, the death of his daughter, and criminal charges forced him to step down. (His grandson Leonis Malburg soon took over.) He and Adelina lived in posh Hancock Park for years but his “official” home address was a Vernon apartment. Leonis Blvd. was named c. 1925.