{"id":21484,"date":"2018-08-29T19:40:33","date_gmt":"2018-08-29T23:40:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=21484"},"modified":"2018-08-29T19:40:33","modified_gmt":"2018-08-29T23:40:33","slug":"essays-from-the-east-side-naming-aurora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/essays-from-the-east-side-naming-aurora\/","title":{"rendered":"ESSAYS FROM THE EAST SIDE: Naming Aurora"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Corrie Clark<\/strong><\/p>\n

What\u2019s in a name? The new subdivisions on the east side of Aurora have taken shape and are adding about 3,000 new residents, and many new streets, so it\u2019s probably worth a discussion as to how the old greets the new in naming Aurora.
\nTown Hall has a list of approved names, but new street names are sometimes left up to the developer with approval. You can apply to have a name put forth and added to the list. There is a commitment to heritage in Aurora, and the names that are put forth are usually significant people, events or subjects related to Aurora\u2019s history.
\nI have a book titled \u201cNaming Canada\u201d by Alan Rayburn. It\u2019s a fun reference about naming our country and the mysteries behind the monikers.
\nQueen Victoria appears over 300 times on our maps. We became the \u201cDominion of Canada\u201d partly because Victoria didn\u2019t like \u201dKingdom of Canada\u201d. Whew!
\nWilliam Fitzwilliam Owen named many of the \u201c1,000 Islands\u201d after stuffy British Military men in the war of 1812. I wanted personal stories about the place names of Aurora, so I asked the question in the open forum of Facebook.
\nI got great answers from local citizens. One of my favourite names is \u201cLoring Doolittle CT.\u201d Loring Doolittle is being inducted to the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame in November. His daughter, Cathy Dye, tells me he was born on Catherine Ave, playing all kinds of sports. He was an Umpire for minor leagues and then an NHL linesman for years.
\nHer love and pride for her Father is evident in her words.
\nMany streets are named for soldiers who fought in both World Wars, politicians and businessmen.
\nDr. Crawford Rose is very worthy of the street he\u2019s honored with as he brought local babies into the world, like John Anderson, and \u201cStitched me up when I did something stupid at Town Park\u201d and he made old-fashioned jokes and put you at ease.
\nHe also stitched up Derek Bunn\u2019s father\u2019s band saw injury, with \u201cno numbing, hand stitched, and nice work\u201d.
\nHe did house calls caring for his community.
\nMr. Bunn said Thompson Drive is named after Thompson\u2019s Funeral Home as his Dad lived behind it. One day Bill Thompson was in his yard wearing a white dress shirt and his Dad called him to the hole in the fence. His Dad threw a tomato at the hole and got the white dress shirt all covered leaving the Thompson housemaid unimpressed.
\nGlass Drive was named after his Dad\u2019s childhood friend Reg. Reg\u2019s wife would make huge cardboard castles, at Christmas for her children, with a drawbridge and turrets. The castle would house all the children\u2019s presents.
\nMr. Dunning was a police officer, he recalls, and his Uncle Arthur borrowed his police outfit on Halloween and started to stop cars on Yonge Street. He opened trunks and checked under seats as a Halloween prank. Not the kind of hijinks you could get away with today. These small stories give the street and the town layers of presence and personality.
\nDerek Bunn thinks his family deserves a little place of their own. Howard Bunn was a town councilor, others in the RCAF, aunts who worked at Scanlon\u2019s bakery and Cousins Dairy, so there\u2019s a lot of good Bunn history here.
\nHe\u2019s put his name in Town Hall. Stories give great essence to Aurora.
\nSo, what\u2019s in a name? Find out. It\u2019s more than just a street sign for directions or the street where you live. It\u2019s an honour bestowed on someone worthy, giving you a sense of home, and one could hope, perhaps quirky and unusual history in the community.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Corrie Clark What\u2019s in a name? The new subdivisions on the east side of Aurora have taken shape and are adding about 3,000 new residents, and many new streets, so it\u2019s probably worth a discussion as to how the old greets the new in naming Aurora. Town Hall has a list of approved names, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5Aw","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-20 10:49:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}