Key:tiger:name_direction_prefix
 tiger:name_direction_prefix
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| Group: highways |
| Used on these elements |
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| Useful combination |
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| Status: de facto |
| Tools for this tag |
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"tiger:name_direction_prefix means that the first component represents a directional abbreviation, and not the first letter of someone's name who goes by an abbreviation. For example "W O Ezell Highway" was named after Walter Ezell who was called W O Ezell. The highway was not West O Ezell because the tiger:name_direction_prefix tag would not be present."[1]
"The absence of a direction prefix is also telling, to keep "South Carolina Avenue" or simple "South Street" from being abbreviated. There's a particularly curvilinear street in a town near here named 'Letter S' (with direction prefixes Upper and Lower Letter S!) that databases routinely mangle into 'Letter South'."[2]
See more at TIGER_to_OSM_Attribute_Map#Feature_Name
See usage patterns at https://taginfo.openstreetmap.org/keys/tiger%3Aname_direction_prefix