Street Name Etymology

The EGE said:
  • Blandford Street: unclear about the exact route, but everything Blandford seems to trace back to Blandford Forum in England. Its name apparently comes from being a ford where blay (bleak) fish are found. The town of Blandford, Massachusetts, is named for the ship HMS Blandford, itself presumably named for the town.
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With the proximity to Granby, Arundel and Maitland Streets I’d assume another name taken from the British peerage along the lines of the others you’ve outlined. The titles Marquess of Granby, Marquess of Blandford and Earl of Arundel are subsidiary titles of the Dukes of Rutland, Marlborough and Norfolk and Maitland is the family name of the Earls of Lauderdale.

There’s also both a Dukedom and Earldom of Sutherland. Euston(in Brookline but nearby) is among other things(a town, a road, a station and a house) a subsidiary title held by the Dukes of Grafton(who for most of their history also held the title Earl of Arlington and still hold the title Viscount Ipswich). Aberdeen Street could very well reference the Earl of Aberdeen(now Marquess of Aberdeen & Temair) and Burlington Avenue the Earl of Burlington, a subsidiary title of the Dukes of Devonshire.
 
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  • St. Mary's Street: I'm not sure why the street was named for the biblical Mary - I can't find any record of a church on the street. It was laid out at least as early as 1858.
  • Hawes Street and Kent Street: both streets appear to have taken their names from the English towns
  • St. Paul Street: the street is likely named for Saint Paul's Church at its southern end.
  • Coolidge Corner: not named for Calvin Coolidge, as I assumed. The name comes from the Coolidge & Brother general store opened there in 1857.
  • Summit Avenue: the street goes to the summit of Corey Hill.
  • Brandon Hall: the station retains the name of Brandon Hall, a hotel located nearby from 1903 to 1946. "Brandon" has several different etymologies (both as first and last name) that have converged on the modern spelling, and it's not clear which is responsible for this case.
  • Fairbanks Street: Fairbanks Street in Brighton was named for the Fairbanks family, and I imagine this one was too. "Fairbanks" is a habitational surname for someone living in "fair banks".
  • Tappan Street: the street was named for abolitionist Lewis Tappan, who built a house nearby.
  • Dean Road: another street that I'm not sure of the origin for. It was laid out in the late 1880s and accepted in 1890.
  • Englewood Avenue: most Englewood place names in the US come from Englewood, New Jersey, which has several possible etymologies; the 1872 naming of the street doesn't name a source. (The very similar Inglewood comes from Inglewood Forest.)
  • Cleveland Circle: the circle was named in 1908 for Grover Cleveland, who died that year. The stop was generally known as "Reservoir" until the 1940s.
 
Fenway gets its own post because of all the footnotes.

The (Back Bay) Fens and Fenway were named 1887 while the former was being created from the Muddy River. The naming was actually precipiated by the parkway, as the Parks Commission approved Olmsted's plan to designate the road following the Muddy River as "the Parkway" with its individual sections having the -way suffix*. The Back Bay improvement, until then generally called the "basin", was called "The Fens" as it would resemble a fen.** The word "fen" comes from Old English and Germanic before that. "Fenway" appears a few times as a street name prior to 1887 in in England - one in Steeple Aston still retains the name - but Olmsted probably came up with it independently.***

Fenway Park was named for the neighborhood, which had taken that name by 1912. It may have also been been a bit of advertising for the Fenway Land Company, of which Red Sox owner John Taylor's family was stockholders.

All of the Highland Branch streetcar stations opened in 1959 were 1-for-1 replacements**** for railroad stations closed in 1958 - except one. Fenway Park station was completely new.***** Although it was commonly called "Fenway", it always appeared as "Fenway Park" on MBTA maps until the late 70s, when the MBTA modified a number of station names for clarity.****** MBTA usage was inconsistent for the next decade or two; this century it's consistently been "Fenway".

* Only the Fenway and Riverway were named at that time. The Jamaicaway and Arborway were named in 1893, along with Dorchesterway (now Columbia Road from Everett Square to Kosciuszko Circle) and Strandway (Columbia Road and Day Boulevard from Kosciuszko Circle to Marine Park. Olmsted's plans to extend the Dorchesterway along Columbia Road to Franklin Park were never realized, and the South Boston parkways never became part of the Emerald Necklace.
** Most fens, such as The Fens in England, are fed by basic, mineral-rich fresh water; the creation of peat is a defining characteristic. "Salt fen" doesn't appear to have a consistent description; while seawater is mildly basic, it doesn't form peat.
*** It also appears as a surname, including in this novel.
****Riverside station was relocated about 2,000 feet to support a parking facility, and Woodland about 1,000 feet. The other stations are exactly at their historic sites.
*****Why didn't the B&A ever build a station there? The railroad did have a flag stop called Chapel located at Carlton Street from the 1860s to 1892, when it was consolidated with Longwood. The Beacon Street line (1888) and Ipswich Street line (1900) predated most of the development in Fenway-Kenmore; the B&A would not have been able to compete with those streetcar lines.
******Most of the changes were on the commuter rail system: Winchester to Winchester Center, Wellesley to Wellesley Square, Norwood to Norwood Depot, etc. Fenway is the only one I'm aware of on the rapid transit system.
 
  • Longwood: David Sears II, who developed the Longwood neighborhood, was big into Napoleon. He named the neighborhood after Napoleon's exile home on St. Helena. The station opened prior to Longwood Avenue opening, so it appears to have been named directly after the neighborhood.
  • Brookline Village: Brookline was named in reference to one or more brooks. The station was simply called "Brookline" as a railroad station; "Brookline Village" was used in 1959 when the line was converted for streetcars.
  • Brookline Hills: originally named "Cypress Street", the station was renamed in 1892 in reference to the nearby Aspinwall and Fisher hills.
  • Beaconsfield: the station was originally built in 1906-07 to serve the 1902-built Hotel Beaconsfield, owned by Henry Melville Whitney, founder of the West End Street Railway. It took that name from the Beaconsfield Terraces, built on Tappan and Garrison beginning in 1889. The name "Beaconsfield" is apparently in reference to Beaconsfield, England - either in honor of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, or Edmund Burke.
  • Reservoir: originally Brighton Street, it was renamed Reservoir around the time the Chestnut Hill Reservoir was built in 1870.
  • Chestnut Hill: as above, the village took its name from the hills near the reservoir. It may have been "Hammond Street" for less than a decade.
  • Newton Centre: the village was known by this name by the 1840s, prior to the 1852 construction of the railroad. Newton was originally part of Newtowne (Cambridge); it was first incorporated as Cambridge Village, then Newtown, and finally Newton.
  • Newton Highlands: the station was originally named "Oak Hill" after the hill to the southeast. The village was briefly "Newton Dale" midcentury, but it's not clear whether the station name was ever changed. The village and station became "Newton Highlands" in 1871 amid a real estate boom there. Of note, "Oak Hill" was reused in the 1920s and 1930s for a development to the southeast - the first in the city to be fully auto dependent.
  • Eliot and Waban: Eliot was named after the Puritan missionary John Eliot and Waban after the native of the same name. There is some evidence that Eliot was originally to be called "Waban", and Waban "Hillside", and they were switched at the last minute. I'm doubtful myself, especially because the station names were noted when the line opened in May 1886, but Waban did not open until August 1886 and Eliot until 1888.
  • Woodland: Woodland Avenue was an older street leading southeast from Auburndale. I'm not sure why the name was chosen for the station - perhaps because of the Woodland Park Hotel at the corner of Woodland and Washington.
  • Riverside: the station took this name for its proximity to the Charles.
 
  • Prudential: named in 1964 for the then-new Prudential Center. Previously it had been Mechanics after Mechanics Hall, which was demolished to build the Prudential Center.
  • Symphony: named for the adjacent Symphony Hall.
  • Northeastern University: several programs, mostly evening classes, at the YMCA were grouped under the name "Northeastern College" in early 1916. It became Northeastern University in the 1920s. The stop was "Opera Place" until 1947 when it was changed to "Northeastern University".
  • Museum of Fine Arts: the museum was founded in 1870; it was in the Boston Athenaeum until 1876, then in Copley Square until moving to its current site in 1909. The stop was typically called "Ruggles Street" or ""Ruggles-Museum" until Ruggles station opened in 1987, then "Museum" until the 1990s.
  • Longwood Medical Area: the term "Longwood Medical Area" seems to have appeared organically in the 1970s. The stop was "Longwood-Hospitals" until the 1980s.
  • Brigham Circle: the intersection was named Brigham Circle after the nearby Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in 1915. The BERy mostly used "Francis Street" during the period that it was a short turn point (until Heath Street loop opened in 1945); "Brigham Circle" first appeared as small type around the 1940 map, while the large-type "Francis Street" disappeared around 1946. (Brigham Circle would not be again regularly used as a terminal until the late 1970s.)
  • Fenwood Road: the road was laid out in the 1890s and presumably named in reference to the Fens.
  • Mission Park: the Mission Park development was built in 1976. it was presumably named for its location at the foot of Mission Hill. Originally Parker Hill, the hill became known as Mission Hill in the 1890s after the 1878-built Mission Church.
  • Riverway: see the Fenway entry. The (not yet built) Riverway was known as Riverdale Road until that 1887 decision.
  • Back of the Hill: historically, it appears there never was a stop between Riverway and Heath Street. The Back of the Hill apartment complex (named in reference to Mission Hill) opened in 1981; E Branch service resumed in 1982 and the stop likely opened then.
  • Heath Street: the street was named for the Heath family who had their farm there. The most famous member was Revolutionary War general William Heath. Some of his family had connections to slavery, and his cousin John Heath owned slaves; Brookline renamed a school the other years because of its connections to John. William, however, did not own slaves and was publicly opposed to slavery.
 
The EGE said:
  • Brigham Circle: the intersection was named Brigham Circle after the nearby Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in 1915. The BERy mostly used "Francis Street" during the period that it was a short turn point (until Heath Street loop opened in 1945); "Brigham Circle" first appeared as small type around the 1940 map, while the large-type "Francis Street" disappeared around 1946. (Brigham Circle would not be again regularly used as a terminal until the late 1970s.)
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The Boston Brahmin were an interesting bunch - Peter Brigham owned a restaurant (until it was closed for road widening) and owned some real estate, then dedicated his fortune to an endowment for Brigham Hospital (and build it). Not sure many restaurant owners could say they could establish a hospital endowment these days on the scale of Brigham and Women's...
 
  • Bowdoin: Bowdoin Square is named for governor James Bowdoin
  • Maverick: Maverick Square is named for Samuel Maverick, slave owner and general piece of shit
  • Wood Island: there were originally two Wood Islands - east and west - connected to each other and Noddle Island by marshes. The name appears at least as early as 1798. The BRB&L had a station there from its 1875 opening, though I have no idea why, given that the hills were unpopulated. They were turned into the Olmsted-designed Wood Island Park in the 1880s. The Revere Extension opened in 1952 with Day Square station on a new alignment connecting Airport station to the BRB&L alignment. It was somewhat between the former Wood Island and Harbor View stations. The station was renamed Wood Island Park, then Wood Island in 1967 - a year after the park had been destroyed for airport expansion.
  • Orient Heights: the hill was originally Hog Island and later Breeds Island. The name "Orient Heights" appeared around 1874 when the opening of the BRB&L led to development. "Orient" seems to be a reference to its location at the far east end of Boston. The station was first known as Winthrop, then Winthrop Junction, then renamed Orient Heights in 1892 during a second development boom.
  • Suffolk Downs: Waldemar station, later called Belle Isle, was open from 1894 to the 1920s. Suffolk Downs station opened in 1935 to serve the new racetrack. Its name appears to be "Suffolk" [County] + "Downs" (common name for horse tracks, from an English word for certain fields.)
  • Beachmont: confusingly, this station was originally known as "Orient". Beachmont (originally Beach Mount) was often included in "Orient Heights" along with Breeds Island (example). The Beachmont Hotel opened along the BRB&L in 1876 and the station name changed within a year.
  • Revere Beach: the town of Revere, formerly North Chelsea, was named in 1871 for Paul Revere. The BRB&L station was briefly Revere, then Pavilion, then Crescent Beach (the community was named in 1881, as the nearby section is the most curved portion of the beach). I'm not sure why "Revere Beach" rather than "Crescent Beach" was chosen for the Blue Line station.
  • Wonderland: named for the Wonderland greyhound track, located nearby from 1935 to 2010, which was in turn named after the Wonderland amusement park (1906-1911). The BRB&L station was named Bath House. The word "wonderland" was apparently coined in 1787, but was rare until Lewis Carroll published Alice In Wonderland in 1865.
I must give thanks here for Hills of the Boston Basin and their fantastic map.
 
  • Courthouse: Fan Pier was chosen as the site of the federal courthouse in 1991; the station was called Courthouse by the 1994 FEIR. Fan Pier was owned by Anthony Athanas; he planned a large development there in the late 1980s, but the deal collapsed. I have to wonder why the station wasn't named "Fan Pier", which certainly should be its name now. Perhaps it was just because the Courthouse was the first development north of Seaport Boulevard. But given his political connections (Lynch, Moakley, and Bulger all fought hard for the courthouse to be there), I have to wonder if Athanas didn't want the station named after a site he failed to develop.
  • World Trade Center: Commonwealth Pier was built in 1901. It was converted into the Seaport World Trade Center in 1986 - one of the first big (re)developments in the Seaport. I believe the reason that BCEC was not included in the name was that the MBTA always intended to run service on D Street with a BCEC stop at Summer (see 1994 FEIR). By 2004, the plan was to run a route to Southie via D and Broadway; this was changed at the last minute (1, 2) into 2 routes (City Point via BMIP; Andrew via D). The latter was never implemented, and so a BCEC stop was never added. Fun fact: as late as November 2004, the MBTA planned for the Silver Line branches to be lettered A-D like the Green Line, rather than numbered as was eventually chosen.
  • Silver Line Way: This name first appeared on the MBTA website in June 2004. It doesn't seem to have a formal name before that; the Globe called it "Manulife" after the adjacent building.
All of the SL2 surface stops are located on land that was part of the South Boston Naval Annex and South Boston Army Base. The Army base opened in 1918 and the Navy base in 1920, both on recently filled sections of the Commonwealth Flats. Various sections were filled over the next half-century; most of the streets were private. The bases were closed in 1974 and the area redeveloped into the Boston Marine Industrial Park (now the Raymond L. Flynn Marine Park). One major filling took place in the 1980s - the Subaru Pier (north of Fid Kennedy Avenue and west of Swordfish Way).
  • Northern Avenue at Harbor Street: the western part of Northern Avenue was proposed by the 1860s as part of plans to fill the South Boston flats. It appears to have been named in reference to Eastern Avenue (now Congress Street), which had been proposed since the 1840s. It was finally laid out as far as the Fish Pier in 1903 and built in 1909 (including seawalls at the head of several docks.) It was nominally extended to Dry Dock Avenue (see below) around 1915, though it doesn't appear to have been a usable street until 1940s filling. The western portion was replaced as a through street by Seaport Boulevard in the 1990s; a diagonal portion remained connected to Seaport Boulevard until around 2015.

    The southernmost portion of Harbor Street was opened between Summer and Dry Dock around 1918; it was replaced with Terminal Street in the 80s or 90s. The remainder was added later by the Army. The kink was introduced around 2007 for reasons that aren't clear.
  • Northern Avenue at Tide Street: Tide Street appears to have been named in the 1980s along the other nautically themed streets like Port and Starboard.
  • Drydock Avenue stops: The street was named Dry Dock Avenue around 1918 while the massive Dry Dock No. 3 was under construction. The dry dock - the largest of its kind on the East Coast at the time (and still #2) - was started by the Port of Boston in 1915, taken over by the Navy during the war, and completed in 1919. Since being opened to the public in the 1985, both "Dry Dock Avenue" and "Drydock Avenue" have been commonly used. The city's streetbook uses "Dry Dock", but the MBTA and most mapping services use "Drydock".
  • Drydock Avenue at Black Falcon Avenue: the nearly-complete cruise terminal was renamed "Black Falcon Cruise Terminal" in 1985 in honor of the 7 longshoremen killed on November 2, 1953, in an explosion on the Norwegian freighter Black Falcon. The alley between buildings took that name soon after when it was converted into a public street.
  • Drydock Avenue at Design Center Place: conversion of part of a 1918-built Army warehouse into the Boston Design Center - a wholesale furnishings market - took place in 1984-86. A new cut-through street was created and named Design Center Place at that time. (Incidentally, the official name of the whole building is the Innovation and Design Building.)
 
  • Logan International Airport stops: The airport was named in 1943 for Edward Lawrence Logan, a military officer and politican from South Boston. Among other works, he overaw the organization of the state militia into the Massachusetts National Guard after WWI. There are two Terminal B stops because the 1970s expansion of the terminal created an awkward elongated shape. There is no Terminal D stop because the tiny Terminal D (just a few gates) was designated as part of Terminal C in 2006.

  • Eastern Avenue: The street was named for its position at the far east edge of Chelsea.
  • Box District: Unsurprisingly, the area is named for its onetime cardboard box factories. The name was created around 2007 when new developments were built in the run-down area.
  • Bellingham Square: The square is named for Richard Bellingham, early colonial governor, who lived in what is now Chelsea.
  • Chelsea: The city is almost certainly named after the Chelsea neighborhood in London, though I've failed to find any direct evidence of that. Its name comes from an Old English term meaning "landing place [on the river] for chalk or limestone"

  • Nubian: The Square was renamed from Dudley Square in 2019; although the nonbinding city referendum did not pass overall, it did pass in the surrounding area. Nubia is an area surrounding the Nile in what is now Sudan and southern Egypt; the name was also in honor of A Nubian Notion, which had been there for half a century.
  • Melnea Cass Boulevard: Melnea Cass was a community organizer and voting rights advocate. The boulevard, opened in 1981 on land cleared a decade earlier for the Inner Belt, was named for her shortly before opening.
  • Lenox Street: The grid through the South End was laid out in the 1820s and 1830s. Many of the streets were named after localities elsewhere in the state. Lenox, Massachusetts was named for Charles Lennox, whose family name comes from The Lennox, a region of Scotland. The name is an Anglisization of the Gealic "Leamhnachd" (the field of the smooth stream).
  • Worcester Square: Worcester Square was laid out in 1851 as an English-style residential Square along Worcester Street. Worcester is named for the English city, whose name comes from Old English Weogornaċeaster (“fort of the Weogoran”).
  • Newton Street: Another street named for a city; see the previous D branch post for Newton's naming.
  • Union Park Street: The street was originally Weston Street. Union Park was laid out in 1851; the origin of the name isn't clear.
  • East Berkeley Street: This was long named Dover Street, apparently one of the town name streets. The name was changed in 1967 during "urban renewal" (destruction of the adjacent New York streets area), as Dover Street was associated with being a skid row. (The Orange Line station kept the name until its 1987 closure, though). Berkeley Street was one of the Back Bay streets with a a British peerage name - the Baron Berkeley. That name comes from Berkeley, Gloucestershire, from the Old English "Berclea" (birch lea).
  • Herald Street: This was formerly Castle Street, probably named for an 18th-century fortification there. It was renamed around 1961 after the Boston Herald Traveler, which had moved its printing plant there in 1959.
  • Chinatown Gate: The paifang gate has long been a symbol of Chinatowns in the US and elsewhere. Boston's was given by the Taiwanese government in 1982.
And that's a wrap on the rapid transit system! I probably won't do the commuter rail stations, but happy to do the research if anyone has specific stations they're curious about.
 
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