Cultura Roma

The main work of the Toponymy Office is to give a name to any area where the public circulates such as a square, either large or small, a place, an avenue, a street or a garden, etc. Toponymy is best defined as the law that divides the city in an orderly way and applies and controls the origin, meaning, pronunciation, development, the era it belongs to and the use of local names.

A Consulting Toponymy Commission performs this function, and comprises 10 famous representatives from the world of culture, presided over by the Mayor or by the pertinent Town Counsellor delegated by him. It is interesting to remember that the city of Rome is at present divided into 22 areas made up of parts of the territory between the Mura Aureliane and part of the most antique sections of the city, 35 DISTRICTS, 32 urban and 3 marine, formed by the urbanisation around the Mura Aureliane; 6 SUBURBS in the territorial part that binds together the city and the Agro Romano and the 53 ZONES, which comprise the Agro Romano.

The Rome Municipality uses a Topomony department to facilitate the correct naming of its own streets, which puts together toponymies into similar Toponymy groups such as, , actors, jurists, Italian regions, arts and crafts, the latest photographs, etc. For this reason, the names we give are very important in our city as they give us a cross section of past times and often remind us of traditions and situations which have taken place in a given area (see Via di Femmina Morta -Dead Lady street, or Viale delle Galline Bianche - White Hens Avenue)

The other important Toponymy function regards street numbers, which by law, have to be assigned to the openings facing the street (houses, premises on the ground floor, car passages) following a request to the citizens to provide the appropriate documents