SFist: Today in San Francisco History - San Francisco gets its name

hillarys_quivering_lip

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 16:46:58 -0800

SUCK IT COLMA!

doublegin

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:35:42 -0800

Eat it, Benicia!

scopa

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:19:05 -0800

OH! Ok, so it was Yerba Buena / San Francisco, and Francisca / Benicia. Got it. Thanks again for these awesome posts!

sfist_richard

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:02:19 -0800

@scopa: It is a bit on the confusing side - the point that you might have missed was the one about the new city being established on the "northern shore of the Carquinez Straits". That puts it across the bay from Yerba Buena, and sets up the oh-so-dramatic tale of two cities. Simply put: Yerba Buena gave itself the name "San Francisco" when a new town across the bay threatened to call itself "Francisca". Having been beaten to the punch, the founders of "Francisca" decided to rename their city to "Benicia".

scopa

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:07:53 -0800

Love these history lessons, but I am a little confused about the place names. So the city of SF was originally called "Yerba Buena", then they tried to give it an official name of "Francisca", but then the Lt. changed the name to "San Francisco"? I got confused because it sounded like the city was called Yerba Buena (in the first paragraph), but then you say "The formation of "Francisca" right across the bay had real potential to eclipse the little town altogether." So is Francisca a different town? or was Yerba Buena where Oakland is?

Sabacc

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:50:55 -0800

He named them after his grandchildren, how is that narcissistic?

hillarys_quivering_lip

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:49:19 -0800

Narcissistic Dick Expressway

RobInSF

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 11:54:59 -0800

Naming shit is fun, I hear that's why most people have babies. There are parts of the country where you can still purchase a large enough parcel of property that you can set up streets and name them just about anything you want. Once you open them up as public access ways they hit the maps and voila, you have RobinSF Lane, Brock Street or AngryYoungMan Blvd. I speak from experience as one of my less-than-popular uncles purchased a whole bunch of acreage, carved out of few streets, connected them to existing public thoroughfares and named them after his grandchildren. What a narcissistic dick.