Much has been written about feng shui and numerical addresses, but not anything I can recall regarding the actual street name.  This is because there are many homophones in Chinese for numbers, which sound similar to other words and connotations.  When considering an address, the Chinese usually have a favorable view of an address which includes the lucky number 8 in it.  In contrast, they may recoil at an address with the number 4 in it, as that homophone sounds similar to the Chinese word for “death.”

When it comes to street names, there could also be associations made, but that does not necessarily have an actual energetic impact. In any culture, the name of the street could have a psychological influence and I thought about this when I recently passed a street  corner in my own neighborhood.

See photo. There is literally an intersection of “Rampage” and “Stampede.” Doesn’t exactly sound like the most tranquil setting, does it?  And yet, this particular convergence of two short streets does not have high traffic and virtually no one enters that block unless they live there.

Still, we may have conscious or subconscious impressions of a street and its residents based on the name of the street. This falls in a very general feng shui category which is common to other cultures as well.  No one wants to live on Pain Place or Desperation Drive. Instead, we might feel invigorated by “Calle de Oro” (Street of Gold) or something similar with a positive image, like Sunrise Avenue or Butterfly Way.

Outside the scope of Feng Shui, Western Numerology may take the numbers associated with each letter in the name of a street, adding that to the numerical part and reducing it all to a single digit. With this, a house has a certain personality type which may ring true for long time occupants.

During the COVID-19 lockdown, I was living on a street called Pawprint, which I thought was cute. With a numerical part that reduced to the number 3, supposedly the number 3 supports socializing and can be a “party house.”  And yet, with everyone on lockdown and afraid of Covid, I had very few guests that year.

Do you know the origin of your street name? Is it a conventionally understood word with positive imagery?  I happen to live now on a street which appears to be a made-up word, with no known origin or meaning. Some neighborhoods have street themes, such as one nearby me with art references such as streets named Paint and Canvas or the intersection of Encore and Ovation. Some street names are very “telling” such as Coyote Canyon or Dead Man’s Curve!

In South Orange County there is an intersection of Antonio Parkway with Avenue de las Banderas, which is jokingly referred to as the corner of “Antonio Banderas.”  The streets were named by the developer in the 1980’s, a decade before the actor Antonio Banderas became famous.

I was once shocked to read in a book about the history of California’s earthquakes going back to the 1800’s, and early farming settlements in what became Los Angeles. They had street names like “Whore Alley” and other unmentionables.  As they say, “What’s in a Name?”

Although street names are not often discussed in Feng Shui class or books, you can still assume, through common sense, that if a street name has a positive connotation for you, that it can enhance your immune system whenever you see the street name. This may be on par with delighting in your home’s color or landscaping when approach the house: Home Sweet Home.

Author: Kartar Diamond

Company: Feng Shui Solutions ®

From the Philosophical and Metaphysical Musings Blog Series