In October 1888, to avoid confusion with other like-named byways, the former Virginia Avenue was given a less common moniker: Toluca Street. This was likely the decision of L.A. civil engineers, who kept “idea files” of potential street names culled from newspapers, books, and so forth. Toluca is a large city in Mexico, and it appeared in the press often enough in the 1880s to have wound up in the idea file. (Its own etymology is murky: some say it references an Aztec god named Tolo; some say it means “where the head is bowed down” in Nahuatl.) As for Toluca Lake, eight miles away, its name dates back to sometime between 1888 (same as this street!) and 1892.
Find it on the map:
