WikiProject Belgium/Conventions/Street names
Here are some general guidelines about the way streets should be named, as a complement to the Key:name page.
Choosing the right name
Whereas the usual "ground truth" rule applies, street signs or government databases may contain mistakes or simplifications.
The name=* tag should contain the full name for the street, without abbreviations.
- Example: A street sign where the space is tight and most words are heavily abbreviated may say "Prof. R. Verdeyenstr." but the name in OSM will be "Professor René Verdeyenstraat".
You can use official_name=* to store the text string as it shows up in government databases:
- LARA for Flanders (https://lara.vlaanderen.be/#kaart)
- UrbIS for Brussels (https://datastore.brussels/web/map)
- WalOnMap/PICC for Wallonia (https://geoportail.wallonie.be/walonmap > Ajouter des données > Données de base > PICC)
alt_name=* is also available for alternate spellings, e.g. without the first name ("Place Eugène Flagey" becomes "Place Flagey") or for colloquial names or spellings which must be available for searches.
If the name contains a spelling mistake, you may fix it.
- Example: The street signs incorrectly spells "Franklin D. Rosevelt"; provided that you did some research to be sure that it is really a typo, you will type "Franklin D. Roosevelt".
- Example: Some street signs use all-caps signs, without accented characters. "RUE DE L'ECOLE" should be written as "Rue de l'École" in OSM.
Language rules
Monolingual territories
Most municipalities of Belgium have only one official language. The name=* tag must include the name in that language only. If there are official translations, they may be added as name:<lg>=* where <lg>=* is the language code for the other language.
Brussels-Capital Region
The entire Brussels-Capital Region is bilingual. Street names are always written in the two official languages. The convention is "fr - nl". Additional name:fr=* and name:nl=* are mandatory.
Municipalities with facilities
There are two tagging schemes:
- name=* uses the main language only. Translations only go to a name:<lg>=* tag.
- name=* includes the name in the main language and in the secondary language, in that order.
A discussion has been launched on the community forum to examine the best way to tag names in those municipalities. Any concern about the rules should preferably discussed there first: https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/language-facilities-how-do-we-map-them/108026