As it’s one of the most obvious street names in Los Angeles County, there’s no need to go into Ocean Avenue’s etymology. The only interesting detail I can add is that it was named in 1875 on the original Santa Monica townsite, which means that founders Sen. John P. Jones and Robert S. Baker chose, at the very beginning, to call their town’s first street “Ocean Avenue” instead of, well, “1st Street”. This wouldn’t be unusual if the rest of the town’s original north-south streets weren’t strict ordinals: 2nd Street, 3rd Street, etc. The reason for the inconsistency is unknown; perhaps Jones and Baker squabbled over it, perhaps not.
Find it on the map:
