About 30 years ago, I was chagrined to learn the road named for homesteader great-greats on my Dad’s side had been renamed.

Modernizing to “Indian Trail Road” made the real estate along Sturman Highway sound hipper. But it was also a more accurate description of who had found the way north to a ford across the Little Spokane River. My Irish forebears’ name was rightly erased.

That experience made me interested in how and why we name things, though. Who gets to decide? And what’s in a name? Is it an act of honoring or aspiration, appropriation, desecration or just exactly what?

Ever since Jami Trafton at the Jefferson County Assessor’s office flashed a County Road index under my nose a couple months ago, I’ve been thumbing through the list and wondering. Are we preserving local culture, or just rushing pell-mell to make Jefferson County real estate palatable to buyers from King, Multnomah and Marin Counties?

The good news is there’s still a little weird in our local place names: Attitude Lane and Bureaucracy Boulevard, Lingerlonger Lane, Nevergiveup Road and Song Dog Hollow don’t sound like cookie-cutter subdivision ciphers.

I personally think it’s great that unique-to-Jefferson-County items persist, like “Egg and I Road,” named for Betty MacDonald’s 1945 Chimacum-set best-seller and Eisenbeis Avenue, named for the baker/brewer/banker who was Port Townsend’s first mayor. Our maritime culture finds expression in Gybe Ho Road and both Ketch and Yawl Lanes.

Without partisan intent, I note, though, that our street names only hit 14 of the first 15 presidents. (Sorry, Buchanan). According to the index, we have no Hayes, Arthur, Harding, Coolidge, Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, nor Obama.

It’s not just presidents who have been stiffed. Here in Jefferson County, there is no Anthony Ave., nor Susan B. Street. No Chetzemoka Trail, no Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard. There’s no Chavez nor Baez Street and nothing named for the Chinese families who helped build the seaport that made this county the customs stop-over for Puget Sound ship traffic.

We have a Sioux Ave. but no Tamanowas Road. Despite Uptown’s rich history of Italian immigrants, there’s Piccini Lane in Brinnon, but no DeLeo anything here where that clan is numerous, nor any -oni, -ini, -ieri ,-ati or -ari surnames. And despite the huge numbers of Swedes, Norwegians and Germans here, not many names point to those histories.

And what of the natural world? It’s great there is a Blacktail Court in honor of the Columbian Blacktail native deer who wander our lawns and streets. But invasivore meters hit the red zone at names like White Tail Lane. Keep those eastside critters outta here!

What, for that matter did the Marquis of Townshend have to do with our port? The several tribes who landed goods-laden canoes here had long called it Qatay.

But as the representative of a world power, George Vancouver had himself a Christopher Columbus moment, planting a flag in order to suck up to some wig-wearing Continental fop. If you can’t teach students about American truculence from that, you can’t teach. We fought several wars to humble the British arrogance that wanted to remake this country in the image of the little island empire and we won them against huge odds, though those English names do linger.

Most Jefferson County places weren’t named from gunboats, but history teaches and re-teaches that economic power is no different than cannons. Those with money get to name and claim while those without are often forgotten.

I understand personal property rights, but perhaps even those with a cannon in their checkbook can agree future place names ought to honor this place’s peculiar melting pot. What if developers and county planners took a moment and agreed NOT to name any more streets after trustafarian hangouts in California or Cape Cod? It happens all over the West and it makes towns seem needy and small. What if, instead, with permission and blessing, we wove S’Klallam history more tightly into our future, with local words names like A’tch Avenue (Dungeness crab) or Slapu Street to keep reminding us who walked here first?

What if land developers pored over the literary, artistic and musical giants who have lived in Jefferson County and named new streets Frank Herbert Court, “Dune” Road,  David “Dawg” Grisman Street or Proulx Place? Or grabbed the names of great scientists and engineers who sprang from here or took nourishment from it?

One point of a place name is to make people ask questions and when names like these cause them to learn of Jefferson County’s rich history, won’t they see it more clearly and love it for its peculiarities?

(Dean Miller is Editor of The Leader and hopes you’ll write, for all of us to read, the stories of places like Balsa Way, Red Tape Way, Go-Onna Drive, Flamingo Drive, Last Camp Road, Lip Lip Lane, Marrakech Circle, Peat Plank Road, Rocktogo Road, Zelatched Point Rd. or any others.)