This is one of those cases where a street’s current name was chosen because it started with the same letters as the previous one. Livonia Avenue was born in 1911 (at National Blvd.) as Livingston Street. In 1917, a couple of years after the City of Los Angeles annexed the Palms neighborhood, Livingston became Livonia per city ordinance. Why? Because there was already a Livingstone Avenue in Cypress Park, which is within L.A. city limits, and duplicate (and duplicate-ish) street names were generally forbidden back then, mostly to avoid post office confusion in that pre-ZIP Code era. Ironically, Livingstone Avenue is no more: it vanished under the Arroyo Seco Parkway. As for the source of “Livonia”, while there are numerous places by that name, my money’s on the town of Livonia, NY as it is located in Livingston County.
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