List of street names in Frankfurt am Main

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Street sign in Frankfurt am Main

The list of street names in Frankfurt am Main shows the meanings and circumstances of the naming.

Currently valid street names are given in bold , names that are no longer valid after renaming or building over are given in italics .

This list contains short explanations of the street names. Of the 3,589 street names, this list only contains those whose meanings are not banal. It does not claim to be complete.

Origin of names

Street names in Frankfurt am Main, like those of other cities, are a mixture of names

  • by places inside and outside the city,
  • to formerly German cities and landscapes, mostly in the east,
  • according to old field names,
  • according to personalities related to the city or of national or international importance,
  • according to historically guaranteed or legendary people,
  • for plants and animals,
  • according to regions, mountains and waters.

While in the past almost only male personalities were honored, in recent years the female gender has also been given greater consideration. What is also noticeable is the endeavor to provide more clarity by adding the first names. In most cases it is no longer necessary to wonder whether the Bachstraße is Johann Sebastian Bach or the Kalbach, but the use of "Dr." and "von" is dispensed with.

Frankfurt am Main often owed its national and international importance to its Jewish fellow citizens, which was deliberately suppressed during the National Socialist era and led to renaming. The city has tried with some success to rehabilitate its Jewish citizens, to put them in perspective and to recall them to mind.

Worth mentioning are "name nests" such as

  • the poets' quarter with the focus on the names of poets and writers,
  • the painter's quarter around the Städel (which also includes sculptors as namesake),
  • the Europaviertel on the site of the former freight yard
  • Bockenheim's ambition to commemorate his former airport on the Rebstock with aviation pioneer streets,
  • also honoring aviation pioneers at today's airport,
  • the accumulation of East German city names in Zeilsheim ,
  • the naming of Germanic tribes in Unterliederbach ,
  • the intention to help honor the memory of the former Roman city ​​of Nida in Heddernheim ,
  • the appreciation of even small towns, e.g. B. in Gallus ,
  • the memory of former German cities in the Fritz-Kissel-Siedlung ( Bernau, Liegnitz, Karlsbad etc. ),
  • the Riederwald, where personalities are commemorated who, as philosophers, economists, trade unionists or entrepreneurs, have made a difference in balancing interests between capital and labor, supplemented by Nazi resistance fighters after the Second World War
  • the memory of democrats and revolutionaries from 1848 around Parliament Square ( Ostend ),
  • the new development area in the Preungesheimer Bogen, also known as the “apple district”, since all streets here were named after apple varieties ( Gravensteiner, Alkmene, Boskoop etc. )
  • or the listing of producers of agricultural equipment in the Kalbach "industrial area Martinszehnten".

Naming

The street naming in Frankfurt am Main has been delegated to the local councils since the regional reform in 1972/1974. They generally have the right to suggest which persons etc. should be included in a list of suggestions for future designations. This is kept at the land surveying office. If a street or a square has to be renamed, the responsible local advisory board will choose the name that suits it from the proposals made available by the land surveying office. The interposition should u. a. Avoid confusion with existing names and ensure a certain consistency with the names that already exist there.

Signs

Street signs with historical names on Neuer Börneplatz

The original street signs of the city were similar to those in Mainz for the streets running parallel to the Main in white letters on a red background, whereas the orthogonal streets were white on blue.

In contrast to the Hessian standard (black on white), almost all street signs today are uniformly white on blue, older signs are curved. The font is a sans serif Antiqua and a derivative of the DIN font, occasionally a “J” is used instead of an “I”.

The neighboring town of Offenbach used the same street signs until a few years ago, now the widespread system of aluminum signs with foil stickers is used, but still in the color white on blue.

Spelling of street names

As a rule, Frankfurt am Main adheres to the guidelines for the spelling of street names published by Duden-Verlag. The most important rules are:

  • The first letter of a street is capitalized, e.g. B. At the Drei Brunnen , In der Au .
  • Street names are written together, consisting of a noun (or a name) and a basic word typical of street names such as B. Street , alley , way , square : Hirschgasse , Philosophenweg , Bismarckstraße , Toulonplatz
  • If the first component is an adjective, it is only written together if the adjective is unflexed, e.g. B. in Altmarkt , Hochstrasse . If it is bent, it is written separately: Große Pleiche , Langer Graben .
  • Separate spelling also applies to adjectival derivatives of place and country names: Saarbrücker Straße , Schlesischer Ring , Käfertaler Straße . However, the ending -er is not always a derivative, but is sometimes an integral part of the defining word, for example at Herderplatz (to Herder ), at Habsburgerallee (to the Habsburgs ) or at Marienwerderstrasse (to Marienwerder ). Since these are normal combinations of name and base word, they are written together.
  • The hyphen is used when the definition of the basic word consists of several words. So Albrecht-Dürer-Strasse , Paul-von-Hindenburg-Platz , Kaiser-Friedrich-Ring , Am St.-Georgs-Kirchhof .

See also

literature

  • Karl-Heinz Heinemeyer: History, landscape, personalities as reflected in the street names in Bergen-Enkheim. Frankfurt am Main: self-published, 1997.
  • Aloys Molter: From the Abtsgäßchen to the Zwischenstraße: the naming of the streets, squares and bridges in Frankfurt am Main. Frankfurt am Main: City of Frankfurt am Main, the magistrate, Department IV - Planning, Building, Housing and Real Estate, 2008.
  • Felix Schürmann: The short history of the colonial street names in Frankfurt am Main, 1933–1947. In: WerkstattGeschichte. Volume 61, 2013, pp. 65-75.
  • Kurt Wahlig: The Frankfurt street name booklet. Frankfurt am Main: Kramer, 1963.
  • Wolfgang Wollek and Markus Kutscher: All about the Römer: A walk through the historic Frankfurt old town. Gudensberg-Gleichen: Wartberg, 2006.

Web links

Commons : Street signs in Frankfurt  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Citizens' Registration Office, Statistics and Elections, as of June 2009