Place names, street names

and names in because of and in honour of and more of....
The powers that be are apparently going to rename a cycling track because the person it has been named after has been caught dealing drugs. Mmm....probably don't want to support him.
It made me think of our national capital. It has a very recent history in terms of world affairs. It was planned from the start. It isn't one of those places which has "just grown". The suburbs are named after Prime Ministers and the like.  Major landmarks are named after others of importance or significant parts of our way of government. There is a whole history of the city in the names alone - if you know how the name came to be important. I doubt the locals think about it too much. I know I didn't when I spent four years living there. Perhaps they teach something about it in school?
I think they have largely managed to avoid scandal with respect to the names. They wait until people have died before they give major areas or landmarks a name in their honour. It is probably just as well.
But names in other places are just as interesting. We once lived in a place the name of which meant "wild turkey" in the local indigenous language. There was another nearby which meant "no man's land".  Along the coast there were names associated with exploration and sailing. There were landmarks named after early explorers - and which early explorers had named after themselves and those in their party. There are names which appear to be meaningless and names which appear to lack any sort of imagination....how many places have a "First Street", "Second Street" and so on? 
And what about those with "romantic" names like "Three Legs o' Man Creek"? Surely there is a story in that?
There is a street named after my paternal great-grandfather and, if you know the history, an adjacent street named after his colleague. They were named for their work as maritime cartographers - something which allowed more exploration and more places to be named.
I thought of all this yesterday because I filled out a questionnaire which was passed on to me. It was for research about the influence of early landscape on mental health. I don't doubt that the landscapes people are surrounded by influence their lives. 
But I also wonder whether the name of the place has an influence too? How do you feel about afternoon tea if you live in Adlestrop?