How to Name a Suburb Development

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We’ve all seen them — these contrived little mini-communities with perfect landscaping and uppity names. Here’s how to name one. Pick any two of the following things and put them together:

  • Pine

  • View

  • Crest

  • White

  • Creek

  • Manor

  • Stone

  • River

  • Heights

  • Brook

  • Green

  • Cedar

  • Acres

  • Meadow

  • Haven

  • Ridge

So, we end up with:

  • Cresthaven

  • Pineridge

  • Cedarheights

  • Brookstone

  • [ etc., ad nauseam ]

Of course we know now what this is about—signaling to buyers that they’re important, and signaling to the buyers’ friends and colleagues and potential matest that they’re important.

These are all words that invoke thoughts of wealth and success, so they are endlessly combined to form some modicum of uniqueness, despite their obvious similarity.

It would be really interesting to track the names that are used for these over time, similar to baby names, to see what words and names are aspirational at any given point in time.

Often, the older aspirational names and words become starkly negative, like Ethyl, or Althea. People aren’t likely to name their daughters those names anytime soon because they’re stuck in the past.

Perhaps subdivisions called PineCreek Cove will soon have a similar negative connotation—perhaps linked to a time when we were obsessed with wanting to sound better than everyone else.

One can dream.

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