Naming,dedicating: street names and tradition

Naming is always dedicating, that is to say offering to the ancestors, inserting the person or the named object in a lineage of some sort. Only street names will be considered here because they have two characteristics of sociological relevance: they are chosen and they pertain to a social group in relation to which they are supposed to express some deep and ancient value. They can be studied from two different perspectives: the kind of action that is the naming of a street and the fact that street names express something of the social reality. Or, in other words, if naming is dedicating, when and how is it possible to shift from one tradition (to which the name refers) to another? A further question could be if street names express something of the social reality, does it imply that different types of social stratification are linked to different types of street names? Both questions will be examined here in reference to two different situations—Paris, France and Évora, Portugal.