Street names sign of national identity

FOR most of us, it is just a handy way to let the postman or taxi driver know where we live.

But now a study has found that the name of our street could reflect how we feel about our national identity.

Researchers at St Andrews University found that people living in Scottish areas with street names commemorating Britain, such as ‘Queen’ or ‘Royal’ were less likely to define themselves as ‘solely Scottish’.

They also found people in areas with street names such as Bruce, Burns and Wallace were more likely to see themselves as Scottish rather than British.

The study revealed street names have ‘strong symbolic power and can contribute to the perpetuation of those social and cultural values contained in them’.

Dr Daniel Oto-Peralías, of the university’s school of management, compared street names with a recent census asking people to identify their national identity.

In areas with a lower number of such union-themed street names, people were more likely to describe themselves as having a ‘Scottish identity only’. He said: ‘I selected some names associated with Scottish national identity such as Wallace, Burns and Bruce.

‘There is also a significant correlation between the percentage of streets in each constituency containing any one of these names and the proportion of the population with “Scottish identity only”.

‘The findings reflect that people name streets after figures, events and values that are important to them.’

Dr Oto-Peralías added: ‘ A town with a strong Scottish identity very likely does not choose names commemorating Great Britain. Consequently, a low percentage of streets with such names reflects a strong Scottish identity but it does not mean street names influence people. It is the other way around.’

In his research, Dr Oto-Peralías divided Scotland’s 59 constituencies into four groups, according to the amount of streets commemorating national figures.

The group with the lowest percentage of streets commemorating Scots heroes, saw only 59 per cent of the population identify as being solely Scottish.

But i n the area with the highest concentration of nationalist streets, 65 per cent of people identified themselves as pure Scots.