As urban and remote communities across the Northern Territory grow and expand, new suburbs and roads are created and new names are needed. There are also existing roads that have not been officially named, often these are in remote communities or rural areas.

Road naming is a great opportunity to record the Northern Territory’s history and culture in an enduring way. Roads can be named to commemorate diverse aspects of the Northern Territory, including but not limited to:

• people
• events
• language
• flora
• fauna
• patterns of development
• war contributions
• exploration
• settlement
• local geography
• cultural diversity.

While not a requirement, a theme for road naming is often adopted in new suburbs. Examples include the suburb of Lyons that commemorates Larrakia language words for local flora and fauna, and part of the suburb of Johnston that commemorates Navy vessels that supported recovery efforts after Cyclone Tracy.

While anyone can request a name for a particular road, it is usual for the developer of a new subdivision or suburb to submit a request to the Place Names Committee. Some developers prefer to research and develop their own name requests (which may or may not be themed) while others prefer to draw names from the Place Names Committee’s Reserve List.

The Reserve List is a collection of names that have been proposed to the Committee for use in future naming projects. Most names in the Reserve List are names of people that have been identified by the community (eg historians, surviving relatives) and given preliminary support by the Committee as being appropriate for commemoration. Read more about nominating a person for future commemoration and inclusion in the Reserve List.

While preliminary support has been given by the Committee for names included in the Reserve List, the developer must still carry out consultation about using a selected name for a particular naming proposal. This would include consultation with surviving relatives/descendants where the selected name is the name of a person, or local Traditional Owners where the selected name is an Aboriginal language word. The view of the local government council is also required to be sought in most cases.

Road names that commemorate a person, only use the surname of the person so if a family or descendant wants the full name of their relative commemorated it may be appropriate to instead apply the name to a park, bridge, building or other public infrastructure.

Propose a name

As consultation requirements differ depending on the type of name being requested, where the road is located, and who owns or will own the road, it is essential that requestors work with the Department to develop a consultation plan beforehand.

The Department will also make sure that any name you want to request meets relevant guidelines and standards before consultation starts.

To start a road naming project and get help to develop a project specific consultation plan, contact the Department.

To learn about the place naming process, read the flyer.

For more information on generic terms that are commonly used in the Northern Territory to describe the type of road, read generic terms.

Place names are usually made up of two parts, the name and a generic term. In the Northern Territory, Aboriginal languages have been used consistently and actively to the present day and remain living languages. For the most part Aboriginal place names in these areas are recently recorded and are linguistically correct for that language.

Although an Australian English system of place names has been allocated across the Northern Territory, the Committee recognises that there may be one or many Aboriginal names for a particular feature.

It is the Committee policy to encourage the recording of Aboriginal place names and in so doing abides by the Committee for Geographical Names in Australasia's (CGNA) Policy guidelines for the recording and use of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Place Names.

The Northern Territory was the first Australian jurisdiction and a world leader in officially incorporating dual naming in its nomenclature.