I mean I'm sure every country has stuff named after people, but it feels like it's done to the extreme here in the US. Seems like every city has a "Jefferson Street" and a "Washington Avenue". Every school I attended was named after a person. I mentioned in the megathread how my nice local park named after a flower got a name change after a pig got shot near it, so they named it after him.

Just seems like God forbid we have generic names for our roads, schools, parks, bridges, etc. Nope, gotta name it after someone. Even then, it's almost always either a politician, capitalist, or cop. Never like, a good teacher that people liked or otherwise good person except MLK Jr.

I think it's reflective of our hyper-individualized culture. And then there's how everything else that isn't named after a person is "Veterans Memorial", but that's a different discussion.

  • dengdidnothingwrong [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    In France, the high school I went to was named after a 19th century socialist writer and activist. It's usually quite broad, schools here could be named after kings, cardinals, presidents, scientists, poets... They don't even have to be French.

    There's even a school group named after Karl Marx: https://patrimoines.iledefrance.fr/patrimoine/groupe-scolaire-karl-marx