Key:name

Key Name: name

See more at Map_Features#Naming, if the street has no name use noname=yes

Key Variations

• name
• int_name
• nat_name
• reg_name
• loc_name
• old_name

Core values

None

User Defined values

Any valid syntax value

Examples:

<tag k="name" v="Channel Tunnel"/>  Default name

<tag k="int_name" v="Eurotunnel"/> Internationally known as

<tag k="nat_name" v="That debt ridden hole in the ground"/> Nationally known As

<tag k="reg_name" v="Gateway to France"/> Regionally known As

<tag k="loc_name" v="The way to Carrefour"/> Locally known As

<tag k="old_name" v="A long swim"/> Historically or previously known As

Notes

Abbreviation (don't do it)

Enter the full name as it appears on the street name signs. Use mixed case with the first letter of each word capitalised (for example, Church Street, not Church street). Do not abbreviate words. There is currently no table of standard abbreviations (St. could be Street or it could be Saint) and it has been decided that this is a rendering issue. i.e. the underlying data should have the full street name. This will allow a renderer to introduce abbreviations as necessary.

Watch out for apostrophes. The same rule applies. If the street sign has an apostrophe, the OSM data should have an apostrophe. There is no obvious consistency; the London Underground station Barons Court is adjacent to Earl's Court, one with an apostrophe, one without.

Localization

By now the majority of rendering systems can deal with unicode characters, so you can use the local script for the default name tag. There is no need to use the Latin script. For adding localized names of languages, use a suffix for the tag. For example, for the Persian name of a street in Tehran, use name:fa, but for its English name, use name:en. The default name is the local (=Persian) one.

Although it has never been officially voted, a lot of people use an language extension of the name tag. This makes sense and it can be seen as established now. Here is an example on the usage:

name=Irgendwas        (the default name, used locally)
name:en=Something     (the name in English)
name:el=Κάτι          (the name in Greek)
name:de=Irgendwas     (the name in German)
name:fr=Quelque chose (the name in French)
name:es=Algo          (the name in Spanish)

This leads to a more precise definition of alternative names.

Example of language codes according to the alpha-2 code of ISO 639-1 :

de  German
el  Greek
en  English
es  Spanish
fa  Persian
fr  French
it  Italian
zh  Chinese

A short discussion on this language extension can be found on the discussion page.

Editor support: JOSM builds 1044 and newer support the display of local names. It detects the current system locale and tries to display names in this language first. You can change the order JOSM looks for names in the JOSM expert settings. Example: To display names written in Thai first, even if the current locale is 'en' set the following property:

 mappaint.nameOrder=name:th;name:en;int_name;name

loc_name not useless

There is a bridge in Glasgow known as the Squinty Bridge, but its official name is the Clyde Arc. I have never heard anyone calling it that, so the bridge is tagged loc_name=Squinty Bridge name=Clyde Arc. 13:24, 26 May 2007 (BST)

Last edit

Page created by Blackadder 12:15, 17 Mar 2006 (UTC)