Coimbatore: Quite a few prominent roads and streets in the city bear the names of Englishmen who were connected to the city and its municipal administration. Lawley Road, Cowley Brown Road, Sullivan Street and Mecricar Road are a few which bear the names of municipal and district administrators and people connected with the educational institutions started in the city by the British.This is because the municipal administration was strong, Coimbatore historian C R Elangovan said.While the drive is on to rechristen place names to proper Tamil and provide proper Tamil transliteration, discussions have arisen whether these names too would be changed to Tamil.An official of the district Tamil Development department said they were primarily concerned with bringing in proper transliteration in English.He said the department would consider renaming roads with English names if it is represented by Tamil forums or Tamil enthusiasts.Tamil scholar Suriya Kanthan said streets with names of English officials could possibly rechristened with names of freedom fighters and national leaders.“While the British are worthy of our respect, we need not make idols out of them,” he said. Renaming such streets would also give opportunity to honour leaders from the city such as Kovai Ayyamuthu and N G Ramasamy, he added.While such street names have been in usage for several decades by now, how effective or relevant would be renaming such places prove to be? Suriya Kanthan said while it may be difficult in the beginning, it might take a while to get familiarized with city residents.However, Elangovan said it would be better to retain names of people in place names as they are.

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