Comment by dalke | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dalke | Hacker News Reader

If I understand https://github.com/mihaiolteanu/ulitza/blob/7df974105aaf9776... correctly, it means the 9 mentions of "Polhem" are ignored.

I think it should point to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Polhem

"Bellmans" very likely refers to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Michael_Bellman

Ulricehamn is named in honour of Queen Ulrica Eleonora, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulricehamn but I can see how a street containing "Ulricehamn" may be more directly named after the city.

"Sankt Pers" is an older Swedish term for St. Peter. https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrus

"Sankt Eriks" is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_IX_of_Sweden

"Nordenskiölds" is difficult since it can refer to several members of the family. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordenski%C3%B6ld_(surname) including (and most likely) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Erik_Nordenski%C3%B6ld .

"Olof Palme" is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olof_Palme with at least 5 streets in Google Maps (the entry has a "3", which I guess is the number of entries in the source data).

"Strindberg" is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Strindberg

The Tegnérsgatan in Stockholm is named after https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esaias_Tegn%C3%A9r (connection written at https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tegn%C3%A9rgatan). There are at least 5 different cities with a Tegnérsgatan.

Also, in the US data "Santa Fe", "St. Francis", and "San Francisco" all refer to Saint Francis of Assisi.

"The name "Santa Fe" means 'Holy Faith' in Spanish, and the city's full name as founded remains La Villa Real de la Santa Fé de San Francisco de Asís ('The Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi').[5][6]" from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Fe%2C_New_Mexico

"San Francisco was founded on June 29, 1776, when settlers from New Spain established the Presidio of San Francisco at the Golden Gate, and the Mission San Francisco de Asís a few miles away, both named for Francis of Assisi." from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco

"Sir Francis Drake" is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Drake .

The author has take on a very heavy mantle. This is not a task that can easily be automated. Two streets with the same name may easily be named after two different people.

US names:

"Johnson" is a tough one. It's likely not https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_B._Johnson , because the name is so common that we've had two presidents with that surname. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Johnson succeeded Lincoln.

"Roosevelt" could be President FDR but it could also be President Teddy Roosevelt, from which the teddy bear is named. Or it could be someone else.

"Warren" is almost certainly not Warren G. Harding as we rarely named things after someone's first name. Warren is a very common name. For example, Warren, PA was named after Major General Joseph Warren, says https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren,_Pennsylvania .

Very few of the "Clinton" street names will be for Bill Clinton. It's a very common name. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton and for a list of US place names with "Clinton" see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_(disambiguation)#Unite... .

Some of the Clevelands are named after President Cleveland, but some, like Cleveland, OH, are named after Moses Cleaveland (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_Cleaveland#Founding_of_C... for the spelling difference). Cleveland, MN was named after Cleveland, OH (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland,_Minnesota).

There are a lot of Douglas names in the US. Two blocks from my childhood home was Douglas Road, named after John Douglas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Road_(Miami)

At this point I don't think it's possible to get much good data out of this data set without years of manual effort.

Toponymy is hard, slow work.

Would you consider making a pull request?

Indeed, if it's 50-50 for a name, then there is no solution out of it. If it's close to 90-10, then maybe it is safe to pick the 90%. It depends on the scope of the project, I suppose.

Yes, the street names of US, Australia, Canada and a few other countries contain only the person's last name. Hard to figure out which is which. I agree with you.

It is not (fully) automated. What is automated is the parsing of raw street names from openstreetmap. Figuring out which name refers to which person and adding the wikipedia link is done by hand. The errors are due to the lack of missing the cultural information, for all the 182 countries currently available, needed to make the right choices (or any choice at at all).

I will consider your input and thank you for it. You can also consider opening a PR if you feel some info is missing or is wrongly laid out.

Thank you for your input.

Yes, Sweden, Norway, US, Canada, UK and some other countries often times only include the last name on the street sign, it seems. If you're not immersed in the local culture it is quite hard to figure out who that person is. Again, thank you for your time and links.

"Two streets with the same name may easily be named after two different people." - that is 100% correct

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