Street names in Barcelona

At this time Barcelona was constituted as a county and later became part of the Crown of Aragon, and the political and economic center of the Principality of Catalonia, becoming an important maritime and commercial axis of the Mediterranean Sea.

The term rambla comes from the Arabic ramla (رملة), which means "sandbank" — or intermittent watercourse — and has since been used as a generic for numerous thoroughfares in the city: Badal, Brasil, Caçador, Carmel, Catalunya, Fabra i Puig, Guipúscoa, Mar, Onze de Setembre, Poblenou, Prat, Prim, Raval and Volart.

The origin of this campaign can be found in the bombardment of the city by General Espartero and the subsequent fine of 12 million reales that he imposed on the people of Barcelona, which led many citizens to erase the names and numbers of the streets — until then simply painted on the walls — so as not to be located.

[67] Around 1850 a sector of the village of Gràcia was urbanized and its owner, Josep Rossell i Imbert, a jeweler by profession, baptized the streets with names related to jewelry: Diamond, Gold, Pearl, Ruby and Topaz.

[77] There were some modifications to his initial proposal, such as the street of the university, which in 1916 was changed to Enrique Granados after the composer's death; and some names that finally did not materialize, such as Atenas, Desclot, Barceló, Capmany, La Coronela and Llobregat.

[78] On the other hand, and surely to compensate, the municipal corporation and the technical body proposed several names related to the history of Spain, such as Floridablanca, Sepúlveda, Enna (now Ramon Turró Street), Marqués de Campo Sagrado, Pelayo, Vergara and Trafalgar.

Thus, when in 1860 Queen Isabel II inaugurated the works of the Eixample, the square had already received this popular name, which was collected in 1865 by Victor Balaguer in his compendium of Las calles de Barcelona.

[90] Different criteria were used to name the new streets: towns in Catalonia (Agramunt, Arbós, Calaf, Cambrils, Escornalbou); counties in Catalonia (Panadés, Priorat, La Selva); Spanish regions (Asturias, Extremadura, Castile, Canary Islands); illustrious personalities of the towns added (Agustí Milà, Pons i Gallarza, Guillem Tell); personalities of the cultural world (Bretón de los Herreros, Marian Aguiló, Ramón y Cajal, Jules Verne, Voltaire, Zola, Frederic Soler, Frederic Mistral); republican or liberal figures (Doctor Rizal, Estanislao Figueras, Víctor Balaguer, Ríos Rosas, Rossend Arús, Sunyer i Capdevila, Vidal y Valenciano); names from the workers' movement (La Internacional, Élisée Reclus, Emancipación); and figures from the past (Socrates, Pythagoras, Rubens, Titian, Pasteur).

[91] The aggregation also revealed a phenomenon that occurred frequently between the 19th and early 20th centuries: many plots of land previously used for agriculture were developed by their owners, who often gave their own name or that of their relatives to the newly created roads.

Its main artery is Tibidabo Avenue, a name that refers to the mountain and comes from a biblical quote: haec omnia tibi dabo si cadens adoraveris me, "all this I will give you if you prostrate yourself before me to worship me" (Matthew 4:9).

[98] Along its extension, it has the following piers: Adosado, Álvarez de la Campa, Atarazanas, Baleares, Barcelona, Barceloneta, Bosch i Alsina, Cataluña, Contradique, Costa, Dársena interior, Dársena sur, Depósito, España, Evaristo Fernández, Inflammables, Lepanto, Levante, Madera, Marina'92, Nuevo, Nuevo Contradique, Occidental, Oeste, Oriental, Pescadores, Petroleros, Poniente, Príncipe de España, Reloj, San Beltrán, Sur and Varadero.

[114] For the Exposition, the Poble Espanyol (Spanish Village) was also created, an enclosure that houses reproductions of different urban and architectural environments from all over the national territory, designed by architects Ramon Reventós and Francesc Folguera.

Streets were also dedicated to Salvador Seguí, Francisco Ferrer y Guardia, Pau Sabater, Prats de Molló, Santiago Rusiñol, Anselm Turmeda, and Bernat Metge.

In 1934 several streets that still had no name were baptized: Sabino de Arana, Bori i Fontestà, Valentí i Camp, and Josep Bertran, while Pau Casals was moved from an alley in La Verneda to a new avenue located between Diagonal and Turó Park.

On the other hand, some names in Catalan remained, such as Foc Follet ("fatuous fire"), Mare Eterna ("eternal mother", in allusion to nature, title of a work by Ignasi Iglésias) and Barri Vermell ("red neighborhood", perhaps not translated because of its possible association with political color).

They appeared as follows: Joaquim Ruyra, Cèsar August Torras, Joan Gamper, Hipólito Lázaro, Francisco Gimeno, Lluís Millet, Apel-les Mestres, Adrià Gual, Enric Clarasó, etc.

It was also agreed to name the streets dedicated to characters with a qualifier that indicated their activity: Pintor Pahissa, Cardenal Cisneros, General Álvarez de Castro, Maestro Albéniz, Doctor Balari Jovany, Almirante Barceló, etc.

[138] Another urbanization in 1950 was the neighborhood of Horta, in Nou Barris, whose streets were named with toponyms from the Balearic Islands: Lluchmajor, Sóller, Ciudad de Mallorca, Alc´dia, Valldemossa, Pollença, Deiá, Andratx, Porto Cristo, Lluch, Felanitx, Formentor, Bunyola and Jardins d'Alfàbia.

The streets of Montbau were baptized with names alluding to the arts: Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Ceramics, Music, Poetry, Dance, Song, Pantomime, Mime, Lyric, Rhythm, Harmony, Muses; or artists, such as Vayreda, Sorolla, Roig Solé, Clarà Ayats, Benlliure, Puig i Cadafalch, Domènech i Montaner, Arquitecto Martorell, Zuloaga, and Zurbarán.

[148] In the Southwest of the Besós some of the streets were named after cities in Occitania and Northern Catalonia: Béziers, Carcasona, Foix, Muret, Narbona, Pau, Perpiñán, Prades, Tarbes, and Toulouse.

[151] Several other streets were baptized with names related to industry: Steel, Iron, Aluminum, Nickel, Mercury, Cobalt, Lead, Tin, Copper, Bronze, Platinum, Uranium, Blast Furnaces, Fire, Energy, Foundry, Mining, Mechanics, Metallurgy, Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Engines, Anvil, Die and Chisel.

[164] In 1980 two squares were created in Nou Barris dedicated to characters linked to the left: Francesc Layret, lawyer and deputy for the Partit Republicà Català; and Ángel Pestaña, anarcho-syndicalist politician and leader of Solidaridad Obrera.

Some examples would be: Sculptor Enric Clarasó to Enric Clarasó, Decorator José María Sert to Josep Maria Sert, Pharmacist Carbonell to Francesc Carbonell, Lieutenant Colonel González Tablas to González Tablas, Pope John XXIII to John XXIII, Bishop Urquinaona to Urquinaona, Jurist Borrell i Soler to Borrell i Soler, Aviators Jiménez and Iglesias to Jiménez and Iglesias, Lawyer Ballbé to Manuel Ballbé, etc.

[171] Public spaces have also been dedicated to international female figures such as Rosa Luxemburg, Frida Kahlo, Isadora Duncan, Marie Curie, Sarah Bernhardt, Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Woolf and Anne Frank.

Several of the streets in the new neighborhood were named after cities that had previously hosted Olympic Games: Antwerp, Amsterdam, Atlanta, Stockholm, Helsinki, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Moscow, Munich, Saint Louis and Seoul.

Additionally, under mayor Ada Colau, City Hall considered changing the names of several streets related to the Bourbon dynasty under the premise that it was restored as a result of Franco's dictatorship.

In addition, the suitability of the names of other public roads was also questioned, such as Aviador Franco Street, after the Dictator's brother, who had taken part in the bombing of Barcelona; that of Secretari Coloma, promoter of the Inquisition in the fifteenth century; or the plaça de Antonio Lopez, due to his activity as a slave trader.

On the other hand, on July 16, 2018, the street name of Sant Domènec del Call, which referred to the pogrom of August 5, 1391 (Saint Dominic's Day), was changed to Salomó Ben Adret (1235–1310), a medieval rabbi who was a lender to King James I and the Chief of the Talmudic School of Barcelona.

[192] Finally, in 1996 a new version of the Gazetteer was made, in which the cards that Miquel Ponsetí had elaborated over the years were added, in which he carried out a deep investigation of meanings until then unknown, especially in terms of characters of former landowners who had baptized the spaces urbanized by them with their own names.

[195] Most signs are made of marble slabs, with the letters in bas-relief, composed of aluminous cement mixed with sand and black ink, and are fixed to the wall with stainless steel screws and nylon plugs.

Plaça de Catalunya sign. Since the end of the 19th century it has been the hub of Barcelona
Map of Barcelona
Barcelona districts .
Sant Gervasi de Cassoles Street
Quarter plate from the 18th century, Carrer del Call .
Roman marble stele with the name of Barcino (110–130 A.D.), Museum of the History of Barcelona .
Barkeno in Iberian alphabet .
Plan of Barcino superimposed on the current plan of the Gothic Quarter
Santa Anna Street.
Petritxol Street.
Espaseria Street, by the Swordsmiths' Guild.
Espolsa-sacs Street ("dust bags"). The name comes from the friars of the Congregation of the Penitence of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who wore sacks, which they cleaned in this alley. [ 41 ]
Banys Nous Street.
La Barceloneta Square.
On the Rambla there are usually two plaques: one for the generic name of the avenue, and another for each of its sections.
Ferran Street.
Plaça Reial , since 1988 twinned with Plaza Garibaldi in Mexico City.
Plaça de Sant Jaume was called Plaza de la Constitución between 1840 and 1931. This plaque, the work of Celdoni Guixà, was located on the facade of the Barcelona City Hall , until it was removed in 2013.
Plan of the surrounding area of the city of Barcelona and of the project for its improvement and enlargement , by Ildefons Cerdà (1859).
Plan of a set of two blocks of the Cerdà grid taken from a pamphlet published in 1863. It corresponds to the area located between Gran Vía and Diputació, and between Roger de Llúria and Girona, then named with letters and numbers: M and N, 31, 32 and 33.
Balmes street.
Plaça de la Revolució de Setembre de 1868 ("Revolution of September of 1868 square").
In the 19th century several gallery-passages were opened, such as the Pasaje del Crédito (1875).
The 20th century has seen numerous changes in labeling regulations, with alternation between Spanish and Catalan, as well as the change of names for political reasons.
Old plaque in the Plaza de la Constitución in Horta, currently Plaça de Santes Creus.
Ganduxer Street, by the owner of the land, Pau Ganduxer i Aymerich
Park Güell .
Via Layetana .
Calle de la Platería / Carrer de l'Argenteria , bilingual plaque used by the Commonwealth of Catalonia .
Pedralbes farmhouse, plate of the old town hall of Sarrià, municipality added in 1921.
Plaça d'Espanya .
Príncep d'Astúries avenue (currently Avinguda de la Riera de Cassoles ).
Plaça del Milicià desconegut (1938), now Plaça de Sant Josep Oriol.
Miquel Pedrola Street (currently Sant Miquel), with the old inscription and a plaque commemorating the POUM militiaman, who died at the front of Huesca in 1936. [ 122 ]
Roma Avenue, as well as Berlin Street, were named after the allies of the Franco dictatorship, Italy and Germany.
The Plaça de Canuda was renamed de la Villa de Madrid in 1942.
Calle de Guipúzcoa (now Rambla de Guipúscoa), named in 1942.
Plaça de Pius XII , one of the epicenters of the XXXV International Eucharistic Congress.
Passeig Marítim.
Corner of Federico García Lorca and Antonio Machado streets, Canyelles .
Paseo del Valle de Hebrón .
Democracia street.
The Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes recovered its name in 1979.
Plaça de Karl Marx .
Plaque of the old plaça de Joan Carles I , nowadays plaça del Cinc d'Oros
Plaça de les Dones del 36.
Plaça dels Voluntaris Olímpics.
Passeig de Joan de Borbó Comte de Barcelona , formerly Paseo Nacional.
Sign with the map of the Parc del Fòrum
Jardins de Winston Churchill ( 2012).
Plaza de la República (2016)
Jardins de Juan Ponce
Las calles de Barcelona , by Víctor Balaguer (1865)
The carrer de la Anisadeta is the shortest street in Barcelona