Ashby! Tilden! Ada Rose! Berkeley’s babies are often named after local streets and parks

When Sophia Johnson and her husband, Tyler Troy, were expecting a third child, their friends suggested names like “Grizzly” and “Third Street.” Though the couple understood that such suggestions were “a big joke” among their friends, for them, naming their children after Berkeley streets was a tradition they took seriously. 

“Berkeley has a wealth of lovely, old-fashioned names to be found on its street signs,” said Johnson.

Edith was first chosen as the name of their first child, now 4, Johnson said, before the couple realized that Edith Street happened to be around the corner from their former Rose Street home, adding to its appeal. So the couple continued — and expanded — the practice when they named their second child after two Berkeley streets. Ada Rose is now 2. 

For baby No. 3, they doubled down again. Linden Cedar was born in October. 

“We’ve been here for 11 years and really love it,” said Johnson, an attorney, who with her husband are originally from Sydney, Australia, and ended up here when Troy received a postdoctoral position at Berkeley Lab. To celebrate the source of her children’s namesakes, Johnson recently ordered a map of Berkeley to hang in their Cedar Street house. 

The couple are among the dozens of Berkeley parents who have named their children after their favorite Berkeley places, from local streets to regional parks, often turning last names of civic forefathers into first or middle names. 

For parents, geographic locations hold significant and often romantic meaning, harking back to their fledgling days as a couple or their younger selves, when the world brimmed with possibility. While a few in Berkeley have picked such names inadvertently, most said they chose local place names simply as a tribute to the city they love. 

“We’ve always loved Berkeley,” said Heli Rodriguez Prilliman, who lived in West Berkeley from 2017 to 2020, where she had a nail salon on Fourth Street that closed during the pandemic. “It was so formative. I learned a ton — about my career, about myself as a woman. It was such a joyous and romantic-ish time.”

Before giving her first child the name of a street, she had designed an online comic strip called Ashby’s Adventures. “There was always something about that name,” she said. “I thought it was endearing.” Her daughter was born in 2019.

“We love California and miss it dearly,” said Prilliman, who has returned to Texas with her family and now lives in Fort Worth. “We call Ashby our California girl.”

Even though her sons are now 23, Hilary Goldman will still point out the signs for Parker and Addison streets whenever she walks, drives or bikes by. She said that naming her identical twin boys after the two east-west streets, which intersect the street she lives on, Grant, in North Berkeley, was an accident. 

While attending Berkeley High, identical twins Parker (left) and Addison (right) were frequently asked if they were named after the parallel Berkeley streets. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/ CatchLight Local

When she and her husband, Manning Sutton, were heading to the twin’s first pediatrician visit, one of their friends on a text or phone call — they can’t remember which — joked that if they had had a girl, would they have named her Milvia?

“At that very moment it hit me! OMG what did we just do? We just named our kids without intention after street names in Berkeley,” she said. “At that point we just laughed and realized there was no turning back.”

Adeline and Ashby appear to be the most popular Berkeley names

The city of Berkeley’s Office of Vital Statistics, which perused baby name data from birth certificates the past two years, found that out of all the locally named babies, Adeline was the most popular. It’s unclear how many of those Adelines commemorated the street or the old-timey given name popularized by the 1903 barbershop standard. 

After a week of brainstorming, one day Byron looked out the window, saw a street sign and said, ‘Hey, what about Ashby?’” — Tim Byron

Still, an informal query Berkeleyside conducted via social media confirmed that the most popular places to be named after were, in order of popularity, Adeline Street and Ashby Avenue, followed by the name Berkeley itself and nearby parks, Tilden Regional Park in Berkeley and Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve in Oakland. 

Adeline, the street, had a sentimental meaning for Kate and Jonathan Whetzel of Oakland, whose “pandemic love story” began in 2021. “We think of Berkeley as a place where we fell in love and started our life together,” Kate said. 

The couple was living near Adeline when Kate became pregnant with their second child. At the time, Kate frequently walked up the street to take her daughter, Cameron, now 2-and-a-half, to school. 

“When we were thinking about baby names, we played a game where we would go letter by letter through the alphabet,” Kate said. As soon as Kate said “Adeline,” the name sounded right. Adeline arrived in November 2024.

What worked nicely was that their elder daughter, Cameron, was nicknamed after something the couple shared when we were dating. “Adeline felt like something that was ours as a family,” she said. “And we liked the idea of something place-based.”

Parents name kids for streets they take to Alta Bates and ones in their neighborhood

Proximity also plays a large part in how some children end up with their names. Parents often ended up choosing the names of streets they passed every day — or took when their children were born at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center. 

Ally Lange, initially had second thoughts after naming her first son after Ashby Avenue, a street that was a block away when she and her husband, Matt Calvert, were living in Oakland.

“It is a little dorky, naming your kid after a street,” she said. “I thought, I don’t know if I’m going to regret this when I get home” from the hospital. 

Ashby True Calvert turned 1 in March. Courtesy: Ally Lange

The couple had been looking for a local landmark to name their child after. At one point, they had considered Adeline, before discovering they were having a boy. The couple was still undecided while Lange was in labor, so she and her husband surveyed all the Alta Bates staff they encountered. They “really liked it because Alta Bates is on Ashby Avenue,” Lange said.

Preparing to celebrate Ashby’s first birthday last month, Lange said she has no regrets. “It has a symbolic meaning,” she said. “We thought it would be a nice, long-term investment for him to remember where we lived when he was born. Rather than it being a reference point for us, it would be a reference point for him.” 

Like the Lange-Calverts, Anna Buss and her husband, Eliot Rhodes, lived about a block from the Ashby BART station from around 2012 to 2016. They now live in Sacramento. 

“We made so many great memories in that neighborhood,” Anna said. They, too, chose the name Ashby for their son, now 5, and gave their 8-year-old daughter, Pela, the middle name Bay. “We loved the way the names sounded — unique but still easy to say,” Buss said. 

Tim Byron and his wife, Dianne Martinez, had long been interested in geographic names, inspired by her family’s Filipino tradition. They were living in Emeryville when their son was born at Alta Bates in 2011 — 12 weeks premature. They had not yet settled on a name. After a week of brainstorming, one day Byron looked out the window, saw a street sign and said, “Hey, what about Ashby?” It stuck.

“There was something soft and calming about it,” he said. “We thought this is a name we’re cool with and seems to have a good juju to it.”

Two years later, in 2013, they named their daughter Adeline, so both children were named after the streets they took to get to the hospital. The family now lives in Albany.

Two young women named Berkeley and a bevy of Tildens

Berkeley Taylor, 14, outside the Ashby BART station in South Berkeley. For the Taylor family, the station, with its graffiti and flea market, is the anchor of the neighborhood, a historic enclave for Black communities in Berkeley. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/ CatchLight Local

While street names have proved most popular as a source of given names, some parents have chosen the name of the city itself. Fourteen years ago Umen Taylor, who lives not far from where he grew up in South Berkeley, and his wife, Nicole, named his daughter “after the city I grew up in and love.” 

Initially, Nicole pushed back, but ultimately gave in. “She now says she couldn’t picture our daughter’s name being anything else,” he said. Today, Berkeley’s 14.

According to Melody Ng, her husband, Joseph Lin, a UC Berkeley alumnus, “loved the school and he loved the city” so much that he insisted on naming their daughter Berkeley when she was born 18 years ago. While there have recently been efforts to remove George Berkeley’s name from the city, the name also means “from the birch meadow,” according to the website The Bump, which describes Berkeley as “a charming town in Gloucestershire” known for its castles and countryside.

Ng opposed the name, as did her mother, who regaled her with “negative comments from all of her friends who thought it was nuts — or bad parents — to name our kid such a ridiculous name,” she said. “Fortunately, we live in Minneapolis, and most people here really like her name.” 

For some parents, the region’s parks, beloved as respites from urban living, inspired their children’s names. Tilden is particularly popular.

Hayley Oggel met her husband, Devin O’Connor, when they were grad students in 2009, and their second date was a hike in Tilden.

And no, he was not conceived in the park, which is another question!” — Adrianne Keffeler, mother of Tilden

“That was our first real, long date,” Oggel said. “The whole time we were there, we went on several hikes there and hashed out our future and planned our wedding on those hikes. It was an important place for our relationship.” 

When it came to choosing a name for their daughter, who was born in 2014, O’Connor suggested Tilden. “We both just immediately loved it,” Oggel said. “We always thought we could call her Tilly for short.” 

Berkeley native Adrianne Keffeler, who now lives in Seattle, also chose Tilden for her son, who’s now 21. The park “takes up a lot of space in my memory bank and just fits him to a T,” she said. It turns out he loves hiking and the outdoors. 

Dr. April Zaat and her husband, Matthew Fitzgerald, who live in South Berkeley, named their first born, a daughter, after the Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve, where they love to hike. Matthew grew up here and she’s been living in Berkeley since college. 

“We love that her name roots her in this community where we became a family and that the parks system represents a core value of environmentalism and supporting community outdoor spaces,” said Zaat.

Many in city also have Berkeley middle names

David Berkeley Friedland, the songwriter son of Cal graduates Sandy and Tom Friedland, dropped his surname and goes by his artistic name David Berkeley. Courtesy: Sandy Friedland

Berkeleyside heard from about a half-dozen parents who had chosen local names as the middle names for their children, a less risky alternative, especially if the name is unusual. 

Sandy Friedland and her husband, Tom, chose Berkeley as the middle name for their son, David, when he was born in 1974 in New Jersey. The couple had met as graduate students at UC Berkeley and lived across the street from People’s Park when the protests took place in 1969. 

“We loved everything about Berkeley. We were here during the days when everything was wild and crazy. It was beautiful,” she said. “We were excited about our studies and our jobs. We had great friends in grad school.”

The Friedlands loved Berkeley so much, they planned to return and did, in 2003. When their son became a singer songwriter, he dropped his surname to go by the stage name David Berkeley. “Friedland didn’t have any cachet,” his mother said, although “our rabbi was not amused” by the name change.  

Lauren Hoe met her husband Luda while undergraduates at Cal, when he lived on the corner of Ashby Avenue and Ellis Street. “I would finish class and race to Ashby and Ellis to be with him again,” she said. 

Years later, when they were living in San Francisco and found out they were having twins, her husband offhandedly said, “What about Ashby and Ellis, like my old apartment?”  Juno Ellis and Margot Ashby were born in 2020.  

It’s trendy to give babies rare and gender-neutral names

In the U.S., the practice of naming one’s offspring after a local street or place is one that likely arrived with Europeans — at least in this region. Corinna Gould, tribal chair for the Confederated Villages of Lisjan Nation, said that such a tradition has never been part of her culture. 

Berkeleyside quizzed two longtime former Berkeley High School teachers — Nancy Rubin and Susan Groves — who did not recall any students being named for local spots, suggesting that it’s a fairly recent trend.

OMG what did we just do? We just named our kids without intention after street names in Berkeley.” — Hilary Goldman, mother of Parker and Addison

Naming children after cities has become commonplace enough that the Family Vacation Guide website conducted a survey of such monikers, using 2022 Social Security data. Santiago came in at No. 1 for boys and Charlotte for girls, with Brooklyn coming in at No. 2. 

Several baby-naming websites also report a growth in gender-neutral names — like Tilden and Sibley — which some attribute to a loosening of gender norms and a greater acceptance of trans people. Prilliman said she liked that Ashby sounds “gender neutral,” which she thinks could benefit her daughter in the future.

Naming a child after a local street, a park or a body of water is no doubt uncommon, and for parents, that’s part of the appeal. A 2022 study by the baby name website Listophile found “an unprecedented growth” of rare names given to the children in Generation Alpha, those born between 2010 and 2025. Such names are being chosen “as a vehicle of self-expression and to signify their child’s individualism.”  

Hilary Goldman with her twin sons, Parker (right) and Addison (left). Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight Local

Zaat, a pediatrician at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland, said she has heard of a pair of twins: the girl named Sibley and the boy Tilden. But her daughter remains the only Sibley at Malcolm X Elementary School. 

Having a name that no one’s ever heard of, however, can have its drawbacks. Confusion tends to arise over spelling, pronunciation and/or misgendering. Lange said that some mistake her son’s name Ashby as Ashley.

Oggel reported that people often assume her daughter Tilden’s name is short for Matilda. Few people know the origins of the name. “It’s definitely a conversation point,” Oggel said. 

As the Johnson-Troy family illustrates, there are the inevitable jokes — from friends and even the parents themselves about this naming tradition. Lange said she and her husband joked that they should give Ashby the middle name BART. Whetzel said people ask all the time if Adeline was named for a street. “I guess it’s better than 37th Street, where we were actually living,” she said. 

The twins, Parker and Addison, reported that they were asked if they were named after streets “all the time” at Berkeley High, but had to explain that it was a coincidence. “But they did get silly responses like ‘if the streets intersected maybe you should live on that corner,’” their mother said. 

As to her son Tilden’s name, Keffeler said that people from the Bay Area know the origin, but “everyone else asks if it’s for Samuel Tilden, the former governor of New York,” she said. “And no, he was not conceived in the park, which is another question!”

Some regret not doing more research on history of their babies’ namesakes

Sophia Johnson, Tyler Troy and their three children Edith, 4, Ada Rose, 2, and Linden Cedar, 5 months, outside their West Berkeley home. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight Local

Most parents Berkeleyside spoke to did not look into the biographies of those they named their children for. The rationale was that they were naming their children after a place, not the person for whom that place commemorated. 

“Hopefully, they’re not ax murderers or anything like that,” said Byron, Adeline and Ashby’s father. 

Adeline has been used as a given name since the 11th century and is derived from the German “adel,” which means “noble,” according to the website The Bump. It is also a variation of the French name Adele. 

According to John Aronovici’s Quick Index to the Origins of Berkeley’s Names, published by the Berkeley Historical Society, Adeline Street is likely named for Adele De Fremery, the daughter of James De Fremery, who built a giant Victorian mansion in West Oakland in the 1860s. The property became Oakland’s first municipal playground, De Fremery Park, in 1907. In an 1891 map, Adeline Street was part of the “F” streetcar route in Berkeley’s Key System. It’s now a five-mile thoroughfare that traverses Berkeley and Emeryville before ending at the Oakland waterfront.

Prilliman, who did do some preliminary research, only remembered that Ashby Avenue was named for “a guy who helped establish the area,” she said.

Ashby, the avenue, is named after brothers Mark and William H. Ashby (1824-1920), who left Newburyport, Massachusetts, for California during the Gold Rush. In Berkeley, they were among the city’s early ranchers, after purchasing 187 acres, according to the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association. By 1870, the street shows up on maps, but parts of it had various names until at least 1910. In 1935, the 5.25-mile, east-west thoroughfare that bears his family name became Route 13, part of the State Highway System.

“Of course we looked up to the person the park is named after to ensure there weren’t any obvious red flags,” Zaat said, of daughter Sibley’s namesake. 

Both regional parklands were named after the men who helped found them: Robert Sibley (1881-1958), was a UC Berkeley professor of mechanical engineering who served for a decade on its board of directors; Charles Lee Tilden (1857-1980), a lawyer and businessman, served as the board’s first president.

None of the parents who had named their children Berkeley were aware that the city’s namesake, an 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher, owned slaves at his Rhode Island plantation. He wrote a poem about westward expansion that was so well liked, the city was named after him in 1866. 

“I assumed it was some early [white or English] settler of the region,” said Ng, who said she would have nixed the name had she known George Berkeley’s history. “Well, I guess I have to tell my daughter now. She will be upset that I did not do more research, and this may make her not like her name anymore.”

Umen Taylor and her daughter Berkeley outside the Ashby BART station. Credit: Ximena Natera, Berkeleyside/CatchLight Local

“Of course we didn’t know!” said Friedlander. “And that legacy doesn’t change the reason we gave David his middle name.”

For Taylor, the name “Berkeley” has so many other meaningful connotations. 

“Outside of it being just a beautiful name, the sentimental value is immeasurable,” Taylor said. “I feel like the name encompasses peace, unity, togetherness, nature, love equality and a long list of other things. And every time I hear her name, I’m reminded of that, and she embodies all those traits as well.”