When it comes to naming streets, cities frequently use the default suffix: St. If they’re feeling a tad adventurous, maybe they’ll thrown in an Ave or Dr. If they’re really thinking outside the box, perhaps they’ll come up with a Ter or Cir. It can get pretty crazy.

To put this all into perspective, I’ve plotted the suffix distributions as a percentage of all streets for six cities. Because I was concerned with naming conventions, street length is not considered; a street that is two blocks long holds the same weight as one that is five blocks. Congratulations to Chicago for having more avenues than streets!

Data sources:

https://data.cityofchicago.org/Transportation/Chicago-Street-Names/i6bp-fvbx

https://data.lacity.org/A-Livable-and-Sustainable-City/Street-Names/hntu-mwxc

https://data.nola.gov/Geographic-Reference/NOLA-Master-Street-List-DRAFT/j4pt-mz93

https://data.cityofnewyork.us/City-Government/CSCL-PUB-Centerline/exjm-f27b

http://www.opendataphilly.org/opendata/resource/39/street-centerlines/

https://data.sfgov.org/Geographic-Locations-and-Boundaries/Street-Names/6d9h-4u5v