When the Alamitos Beach townsite was laid out in 1886, its twenty north-south avenues were arranged in alphabetical order. Just over half have retained their original monikers: Alamitos, Bonito, Cerritos, Esperanza, Falcon, Gaviota, Hermosa, Junipero, Lindero, Paloma, and Redondo. As for the others: Descanso became Orange, Independencia became Cherry, Kalamazoo kept the “K” and became Kennebec, Modjeska (named for stage actress Helena Modjeska) became Molino, Naranja became Temple, Obispo became Orizaba and was reborn elsewhere, Quito became Coronado, and Sobrante became Loma. So what about Termino? Well, that’s a special case. Its name is original to the townsite… but its first location became Euclid Avenue and today’s Termino lies three blocks to the east! Término is Spanish for “end”, so we may presume that the street was so named as it marked the east end of Alamitos Beach. Then came some rejiggering and Grand and Mira Mar avenues were squeezed in while Termino was moved further east to maintain its “terminal” status. P.S. I have an additional theory that someone wanted the alphabet to continue, hence the weirdly-named Ximeno Avenue four blocks east of Termino; I admit that the lack of U-, V-, and W-themed streets between the two does throw a wrench in that theory.
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