[Talk-GB] Street-name toids

[Mark Goodge]

On 13/08/2020 13:34, I wrote:
> 
> The TOIDs in those datasets can then be cross-referenced against OS 
> OpenNames to give the OS name for the linked USRNs. Although this isn't, 
> always, the same as the official USRN name of the street, which can be 
> confusing. But that's because OS (like OSM) maps what is visible, rather 
> than necessarily what is documented, and if a street has a name by which 
> it is commonly referred to then that's what goes on the OS maps even if 
> it has a different name in the USRN.

Just as an aside to that, there are just over 92,000 USRNs in the Open 
USRN database that are linked to both a named road in OpenNames (via the 
TOIDS LID) and have a name in the NSG, but those two names are not the same.

In a lot of cases that's a simple translation difference - OpenNames is 
English-only, but the NSG uses local names (eg, in Welsh) where 
different to English. Others are relatively minor disagreements over 
spelling (eg, Aaron's Hill v Aarons Hill or Abbey Fields v Abbeyfields). 
The NSG also differentiates, in some cases, between different 
carriageways of dual carriageways, so it has, for example, both Abbey 
Hill Westbound and Abbey Hill Eastbound where OpenNames only has Abbey 
Hill. But, even after excluding these, there are still a significant 
number of streets where the OpenNames name and the NSG name are 
completely different.

I haven't dug particularly deeply into this, as the NSG list of street 
names, although readily available, isn't open data so it's not a lot of 
practical use for my purposes (or, for that matter, OSM). But it is an 
illustration of how even the "official" name of something is not 
necessarily the "correct" name. The naming of roads is a difficult 
matter, it isn't just one of your armchair map games :-)

Mark