Why 25 Vancouver Streets Are Named What They Are (Burrard, Granville, Kingsway and More)

You say these names every day without thinking about them. Burrard, Granville, Hastings, Robson. Many of the downtown ones were picked in a hurry in the 1880s, and plenty honour people who never set foot in BC. A CBC News analysis counted 651 unique street names in Vancouver once numbered avenues were set aside. A companion CBC story reported that about 40 per cent are named for white men and 2 per cent for women.

A lot of the naming came from one man. CPR surveyor Lauchlan Hamilton laid out much of the original city and chose many of its street names, often by reading them straight off a coastal chart. The rest came from premiers, governors, railway bosses, real-estate boosters and, in one Gastown case, a 1970s rebrand. The standard reference is Elizabeth Walker’s Street Names of Vancouver, published in 1999 by the Vancouver Historical Society.

Below is the story behind each name, where the sources disagree, and where you can still see the evidence on the ground. A few of these histories are uncomfortable. They’re included as the record shows them.

25. Lonsdale Avenue (North Vancouver)

The Shore’s main street comes from a company, not a pioneer. The Lonsdale Estates Company was set up in 1882 by English investor Arthur Pemberton Heywood-Lonsdale.

He never visited the land that made him money. The North Shore heritage record is blunt about it.

Look around and you’ll see the rest of the family on the signs. Fell, Pemberton and Heywood street names in North Vancouver come from the same family. Take the SeaBus to Lonsdale Quay and you’re at the foot of the avenue.

24. Thurlow Street (West End and Downtown)

Thurlow Street is a name lifted from the map. Hamilton borrowed it from the Thurlow Islands off northern Vancouver Island.

Captain Vancouver had named those islands in 1792 for Edward Thurlow, a Lord Chancellor of England.

It’s one of many West End names Hamilton took from a coastal chart. Once you know that, the neighbourhood reads like an index of the coast.

23. Smithe Street (Downtown)

Smithe Street is named for William Smithe, premier of BC from 1883 to 1887. The Tyee lists him among the premiers whose names it says carry a ‘dark history.’

Smithe, Davie and Robson were three premiers in a row. All three gave their names to downtown streets close to each other.

If you drive into downtown off the Cambie Bridge heading north, you’re on Smithe.

22. Alberni Street (Downtown and West End)

Alberni Street honours Pedro de Alberni, the Spanish officer who commanded troops at Nootka Sound in 1790.

Hamilton got there indirectly. In 1885 he chose street names for much of the West End from a map of the coast, and Alberni came by way of Alberni Inlet and Port Alberni.

Alberni is also credited with planting the first European garden on Vancouver Island. The street runs one block north of Robson.

Named for a place, which was named for a person

Street	Taken from	Which honours
Burrard	Burrard Inlet (named 1792)	Sir Harry Burrard, Royal Navy
Georgia	Strait of Georgia (named Gulf of Georgia, 1792)	King George III
Pender	Pender Island (named 1859)	Daniel Pender, coastal surveyor
Thurlow	Thurlow Islands (named 1792)	Edward Thurlow, Lord Chancellor
Alberni	Alberni Inlet and Port Alberni	Pedro de Alberni, Spanish officer
Cordova	Cordova Channel, now Esquimalt Harbour (named 1790)	Antonio Bucareli y Cordova, Viceroy of Mexico

21. Abbott Street (Gastown and Downtown)

Abbott Street honours Harry Braithwaite Abbott, general superintendent of the CPR’s Pacific Division from 1886 to 1897.

Hamilton named several streets after his CPR colleagues, Abbott and Cambie among them. The railway didn’t just bring the city its trains. It handed out the street signs.

Abbotsford is probably named after him too: BC Geographical Names records a 1924 letter from the townsite’s founder, J.C. Maclure, saying he named it for Harry Abbott, though another account says he borrowed the name of Sir Walter Scott’s Scottish estate. The street runs through Gastown.

Same namesake, somewhere else on the map

Street	Namesake	Also named for them
Seymour	Governor Frederick Seymour	Mount Seymour, Seymour River, Mount Seymour Provincial Park
Powell	Dr. Israel Wood Powell	Powell River
Abbott	Harry Braithwaite Abbott, CPR	Abbotsford (probably)
Hastings	Rear Admiral George Fowler Hastings	Hastings Mill
Burrard	Sir Harry Burrard	Burrard Inlet, Burrard Bridge

20. Carrall Street (Gastown and Chinatown)

Carrall Street honours Dr. Robert William Weir Carrall, who lived from 1837 to 1879. He was a physician who served as a Union surgeon in the American Civil War.

He was one of the delegates sent to Ottawa in 1870 to negotiate the terms of British Columbia’s union with Canada.

Carrall and Cordova is the historic Gastown corner. Elizabeth Walker’s Street Names of Vancouver, available online through the Vancouver Public Library, has more if you want more than the name.

19. Cordova Street (Gastown and Downtown)

Cordova Street is named after the Cordova Channel, the old Spanish name for Esquimalt Harbour. It appeared on 19th-century maps.

That name was given in 1790 to honour Don Antonio Bucareli y Cordova, Viceroy of Mexico. So a Gastown street carries the name of a Spanish colonial official who governed from Mexico City.

Cordova and Alberni are among the city’s few Spanish-era names. Waterfront Station is a short walk away.

18. Seymour Street (Downtown)

Seymour Street is named for Frederick Seymour, governor of colonial BC from 1864 and of the united colonies of Vancouver Island and BC until 1869.

The Tyee, notes that Indigenous reserves were cut under Joseph Trutch during his governorship.

His name is all over the Shore too. Mount Seymour, the Seymour River and Mount Seymour Provincial Park, established in 1936, are named for him. Downtown, the street runs parallel to Granville.

17. Hamilton Street (Downtown and Yaletown)

Lauchlan Hamilton was the CPR’s land commissioner in Vancouver. He surveyed much of the early city and named a large share of its streets.

He also named one after himself. Hamilton Street is the result.

Yaletown-Roundhouse station is the closest stop to Hamilton Street.

16. Dunsmuir Street (Downtown to Chinatown)

Dunsmuir Street is named for the Dunsmuir coal family of Vancouver Island. Their mines were notorious for harsh treatment of workers.

Which Dunsmuir it honours isn’t settled. A 2018 Georgia Straight article says Robert. The same article notes the business passed, after Robert’s death in 1889, to his son James, whom it calls perhaps more ruthless. Without a definitive source, the safe answer is the family.

The street runs through the downtown core toward Chinatown.

15. The royal streets: Victoria, Alexandra, Elizabeth, Guelph (Citywide)

Among the few women honoured with early street names were British royals. That gave the city Victoria Drive, Elizabeth Street and Alexandra Street.

Historian John Atkin says Alice and Beatrice streets, both near Victoria Drive, were likely named for Queen Victoria’s daughters. Guelph Street comes from Queen Victoria’s family name.

It fits the CBC numbers in the intro: about 2 per cent of streets named for women. Newer names are starting to shift that, including West End laneways for local women such as Rosemary Brown Lane. Victoria Drive is in East Vancouver.

14. Pender Street (West End through Downtown and Chinatown)

Hamilton named Pender Street after Pender Island. Captain George Richards of HMS Plumper named the island in 1859 for his senior survey officer, Daniel Pender. Pender surveyed the BC coast from 1857 to 1870.

The Chinatown stretch had a different name first. It was Dupont Street, after Major Charles T. Dupont, until it was renamed Pender in 1907.

The reason for the change isn’t settled. It may have been an attempt to clean up the street’s image, but that’s speculation. East Pender runs through Chinatown.

13. Powell Street (Gastown and Downtown Eastside)

Powell Street is named for Dr. Israel Wood Powell. He helped extend the CPR line from Port Moody to Coal Harbour and donated land for Vancouver’s first City Hall.

He was also BC’s Superintendent of Indian Affairs from 1872 to 1889. Both facts belong in the story.

The street later became the centre of Vancouver’s Japanese Canadian community until the forced removal of Japanese Canadians in the 1940s. Powell Street starts at Maple Tree Square in Gastown. Powell River is named for the same man.

12. Cambie Street (Gastown to Marpole)

Cambie Street is named for Henry John Cambie, a CPR engineer and surveyor.

South of False Creek, the street was once Bridge Street. It took the Cambie name after the second Cambie Bridge opened in 1911; secondary sources put the rename at 1912.

The Canada Line runs under Cambie south of False Creek. At the opposite end, the Gastown steam clock stands at Cambie and Water Street.

11. Blood Alley Square and Trounce Alley (Gastown)

Blood Alley Square sounds old. It isn’t. The name was chosen in the 1970s, during the makeover that turned Gastown into a heritage district.

The stories about butchers and hangings have no historical record behind them. According to John Atkin, the Blood Alley Square name was picked to mark a new space created during the renovation.

The lane itself is officially Trounce Alley, a name in use since the 1890s. The real history, a deliberate 1970s rebrand, is the better story. You’ll find it off Abbott and Carrall.

10. Commercial Drive (Grandview-Woodland)

The area was originally a source of timber for the Hastings Sawmill on Burrard Inlet, and became a residential neighbourhood after the interurban railway arrived in 1891. It was later called Park Drive, because it led to Clark Park. It became Commercial Drive in 1911, reportedly after local merchants pushed for a name they thought would bring in business (another account says it was to avoid confusion with other Park Drives).

After the Second World War it became known as Little Italy, a nickname that stuck.

Commercial-Broadway station puts you in the middle of it.

9. Broadway (Point Grey to Rupert Street)

Broadway was 9th Avenue until May 1909. City archivist J.S. Matthews later remarked that the change was meant to promote some mysterious advantage.

It was the same boom that produced Main Street a year later. Swapping a number for a big-city name was a way to sell lots.

The rename missed a piece. A short West 9th Avenue still exists at the far west end, starting at Courtenay Street and running about four and a half blocks. Commercial-Broadway and Broadway-City Hall stations are the main transit stops on the street.

8. Main Street (Waterfront to the Fraser River)

Main Street was originally Westminster Avenue. It was renamed in 1910, in the middle of a long real-estate boom. Names were marketing, and a plain, central-sounding name helped.

The Lee Building at Main and Broadway went up in 1911, right after both streets were renamed. The Vancouver Heritage Foundation marks it as a Place That Matters, and its plaque tells the story.

Main Street-Science World SkyTrain station is at the north end.

7. Davie Street (West End to Yaletown)

Davie Street is named for Alexander Edmund Batson Davie, premier of BC from 1887 to 1889. He fell ill soon after taking office and died while still premier.

You may have heard he was BC’s first gay politician. That story is a myth. Columnist Kevin Dale McKeown took it apart in a 2016 Xtra article.

What is true is that the street named after him has been the centre of Vancouver’s LGBTQ community since the 1970s. Davie Village runs roughly between Burrard and Jervis.

6. Georgia Street (Stanley Park causeway to East Van)

Hamilton named Georgia Street after the Strait of Georgia. George Vancouver had named that water the Gulf of Georgia in 1792, after King George III. It was renamed a strait in 1865.

So the street honours a king by way of a body of water. Coast Salish peoples lived along that water for thousands of years before any of those names arrived.

West Georgia leads to Stanley Park and the Lions Gate Bridge. The Georgia Straight newspaper is named after the same strait.

5. Hastings Street (Downtown east into Burnaby)

Hastings Street is named for Rear Admiral George Fowler Hastings, commander of the Royal Navy’s Pacific squadron. Hastings Mill, Vancouver’s first lumber mill, carried the same name. The mill came before the city, so the admiral’s name was already local when the streets went in.

The street was much shorter at first. Before 1900 it only reached as far east as Renfrew Street. By 1903 it had been extended toward the Barnet Road.

A piece of the mill survives. The Hastings Mill Store made it through the 1886 fire and is now a museum in Hastings Mill Park at the foot of Alma Street. Check the museum’s current hours before you go. For the downtown stretch of Hastings, Waterfront Station is at the west end.

4. Robson Street (Downtown and West End)

Robson Street is named for John Robson, a journalist and politician who was premier of BC from 1889 to 1892. It was one of Vancouver’s first streets.

His record is mixed. The Tyee groups him with Trutch and Smithe among street namesakes with a “dark history” on Indigenous rights.

The street’s modern character came later. After the Second World War, German and other European immigrants opened shops here, and the street picked up the nickname Robsonstrasse. It runs from BC Place to the edge of Stanley Park. The best-known shopping blocks are between Burrard and Jervis.

3. Kingsway (Main Street through Burnaby to New Westminster)

Kingsway is the city’s one big diagonal, and there’s a reason. It follows an Indigenous trail used for centuries. In 1860 it became a wagon road called Westminster Road. The Burnaby Beacon notes it was widened in 1872 and renamed Vancouver Road.

The name Kingsway came in 1913, when the road was widened and paved. The sources disagree on why. Vancouver Is Awesome says it honours King Edward VII. A heritage report on the 2400 Motel on Kingsway says council named it after a street in London, England.

The Expo Line runs roughly alongside Kingsway from Victoria Drive into Burnaby. On the Vancouver stretch, watch for art pieces shaped like highway signs that read INDIGENOUS TRAIL and WAGON ROAD.

2. Burrard Street (Downtown to Kitsilano)

Burrard Street takes its name from Burrard Inlet, not directly from a person. Captain George Vancouver named the inlet in 1792 after a former shipmate, Sir Harry Burrard. Burrard never came to BC. His name ended up on an inlet, a street and a bridge anyway.

You can see both men on the 1932 Burrard Bridge. Their busts sit in ship prows jutting from the bridge towers. Look underneath for the letters: a V under Vancouver, a B under Burrard.

Walk or bike the bridge sidewalks to get a proper look at the busts. Step out of the flow of foot and bike traffic before you stop and look up.

1. Granville Street (Downtown to Marpole)

Before there was a Vancouver, there was Granville. In 1870 the settlement most people called Gastown was surveyed and officially named Granville Townsite. The name honoured Lord Granville, the British Colonial Secretary at the time.

The townsite was chosen as the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the new city took the name Vancouver. The old townsite name survived on the city’s main north-south street.

One small correction for pub arguments: Walker’s book points out the proper title is Earl Granville, not the Earl of Granville. Granville SkyTrain station on the Expo Line sits under the Granville Mall.

Three premiers, three downtown streets

Column 1	Column 2
Smithe	1883–1887
Davie	1887–1889
Robson	1889–1892

Look up your own street

Elizabeth Walker’s Street Names of Vancouver is the reference most of these stories trace back to. Scout Magazine notes it’s available online through the Vancouver Public Library. For a wider view, the CBC streets project sorts all 651 names by origin. As the chart below shows, one of the biggest groups, 62 streets, is names nobody has been able to trace.

Myths to drop

• Premier Davie was not shown to be BC’s first gay politician. The Xtra piece covers why.
• Blood Alley did not get its name from butchers or hangings. It’s a 1970s name, per John Atkin.
• The Dupont-to-Pender rename may have been about image, but nobody has proved it.
• Kingsway and Dunsmuir each have two competing namesake stories. Neither is settled.

A Gastown walk that covers a lot of names

Several of these streets sit within a few blocks of each other. Start at Waterfront Station for Cordova. Walk to Cambie and Water Street for the steam clock at the north end of Cambie. Carry on to Carrall and Cordova, the historic Gastown corner. Blood Alley Square and Trounce Alley are off Abbott and Carrall. Powell Street starts at Maple Tree Square. Gastown sidewalks get crowded, so step aside when you stop to read a sign.

Getting around by transit

• Granville: Granville station (Expo Line), under the Granville Mall.
• Kingsway: the Expo Line runs roughly parallel to it from about Victoria Drive into Burnaby (Metrotown station is a short walk from Kingsway).
• Main Street: Main Street-Science World station at the north end.
• Broadway and Commercial Drive: Commercial-Broadway station. Broadway-City Hall also serves Broadway.
• Cambie: the Canada Line runs under it south of False Creek.
• Hamilton Street: Yaletown-Roundhouse station.
• Hastings and Cordova: Waterfront Station.
• Lonsdale Avenue: SeaBus to Lonsdale Quay.

Who names streets now

New names go through the City’s Civic Asset Naming Committee. At the time of CBC’s reporting, historian John Atkin co-chaired it.

Many of Vancouver’s best-known downtown street names were handed out fast, by a few men with a CPR map and a coastal chart. Admirals and lord chancellors who never saw the place got the big streets. Premiers got a cluster downtown. Boosters swapped numbers for borrowed names to move real estate. Once you know the pattern, the city reads differently. Next time you’re waiting at a light on Burrard or Hastings, you’ll know whose name is on the sign, and that a few of them were picked for reasons nobody can quite pin down.

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Photo credits

• Vancouver – Robson street sign.jpg by Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 3.0 (combined into a montage, cropped). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Vancouver (BC, Canada), Hotel Vancouver — 2022 — 1924.jpg by Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0 (combined into a montage, cropped). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Vancouver Gastown 01.JPG by Xicotencatl, CC BY-SA 4.0 (combined into a montage, cropped). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Vancouver (BC, Canada), Stanley Park, Hallelujah Point — 2022 — 2116.jpg by Dietmar Rabich, CC BY-SA 4.0 (combined into a montage, cropped). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Granville Street Vancouver.jpg by Xicotencatl, CC BY-SA 4.0 (resized; cropped for the featured image). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Vancouver – False Creek pano 02.jpg by Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 3.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Eastward view of Kingsway, near Boundary Road between Burnaby and Vancouver.jpg by Yuet Man Lee, CC BY-SA 4.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Robson Street Sign – West End – Vancouver BC – Canada.jpg by Adam Jones, Ph.D., CC BY-SA 3.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• East Hastings Street Vancouver.JPG by Canadian2006, CC BY-SA 3.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• 2010 Davie Street community garden Vancouver BC Canada 5045979145.jpg by Geoff Peters from Vancouver, BC, Canada, CC BY 2.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Georgia Street Vancouver – panoramio.jpg by qwesy qwesy, CC BY 3.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• View up West Pender Street, including the Entrance to Chinatown and the Sun Tower. – panoramio.jpg by Shane Smith, CC BY-SA 3.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Cambie Street bridge viewed from the Spyglass Dock in Vancouver, BC (DSCF7465).jpg by trougnouf (Benoit Brummer), CC BY 4.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Lee Building Vancouver.JPG by Canadian2006, CC BY-SA 3.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Broadway Reclaimed.jpg by Tavis Ford from Canada, CC BY 2.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Bump n Grind Cafe, Commercial Drive (40166594602).jpg by GoToVan from Vancouver, Canada, CC BY 2.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• 11161 hamilton st vancouver (2).JPG by SamGusway, CC BY-SA 3.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Seymour Building Vancouver 01.JPG by Xicotencatl, CC BY-SA 4.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Vancouver Manhattan Apts 2010.jpg by Canadian2006, CC BY-SA 3.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• 2021-08-08 Vancouver (51622496626).jpg by Darren Kirby from Penticton, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Orpheum vancouver smithe n seymour 2.JPG by SamGusway, CC BY-SA 3.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Stadium–Chinatown station, March 2018.jpg by Northwest, CC BY-SA 4.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• 2016 366 275 Carrall Street (29972783891).jpg by Edna Winti, CC BY 2.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• West Cordova Street Vancouver 01.JPG by Xicotencatl, CC BY-SA 4.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• 88 Powell Street 01.jpg by Xicotencatl, CC BY-SA 3.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• 306 Abbott Street.jpg by Vancouver Photo Guy, CC BY-SA 4.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• Guelph 10th 01 – panoramio.jpg by Dracunculus, CC BY-SA 3.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• In between the glamour (3422777535).jpg by Kenny Louie from Vancouver, Canada, CC BY 2.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.
• 92 Lonsdale Avenue (3).JPG by Vanbustaf, CC BY-SA 3.0 (resized). Via Wikimedia Commons.