Kuala Lumpur Street Names

Kuala Lumpur Street Names (23 October, 2015)


Kuala Lumpur Street Names is the book that tells you the history of the various streets in Kuala Lumpur. The autographed copy by Mariana Isa and Maganjeet Kaur has been sitting on my nightstand for the past one week, and now I feel it's time I talk about it. I love going through it, just to find out how each street in Kuala Lumpur get its name.

Kuala Lumpur Street Name continues the series by publisher Marshall Cavendish, which began with the one on Singapore. First published in 2003, it was originally called Toponymics, a name that was sure to elicit a "Huh?" from everybody who saw it. It was written by Victor R. Savage and Brenda S.A. Yeoh and published by Eastern Universities Press, which is an imprint of Marshall Cavendish.

Ten years later, the publisher wised up, and re-released the book with a new name. Singapore Street Names is the 2013 incarnation and third edition of Toponymics. Though the word typonymics is not completely dropped from the cover, it is now so much easier for the mainstream market to understand what this book is about. Enough about that. Now let's fast forward to Mariana and Maganjeet's book.

Published in 2015, Kuala Lumpur Street Names is a guide to the meanings and histories of Kuala Lumpur street name. Over here, the "t word" does not appear on the cover, but it's all about toponymics of course. To put together this compilation, the two authors ploughed through the plans and records of the National Archives of Malaysia (along with whatever they can dig up at the City Hall, Police Museum, Kuala Lumpur Library, etc.); they learn how streets are named and when they were re-named, and they put together a very easy-to-digest volume.

Kuala Lumpur Street Names has all the streets arranged alphabetically. Streets that share a collective history, for example, Jalan/Lorong/Lebuh Something, are entered only once. However if the street has undergone a number of name changes, then each name is its own entry. Therefore, Jalan Sultan Yahya Petra was formerly Jalan Semarak, which was formerly Jalan Gurney, which was formerly Gurney Road, which was originally a portion of Rifle Range Road. You can search each name (as underlined by me) and get the history of that name. Completely no sweat!

Kuala Lumpur Street Names offers you everything you might want to know about the streets of Kuala Lumpur, and more. It certainly appeals to the small group of people like me who are forever curious about street name etymology. It saves us the trouble of combing the archives ourselves. I hope that in future Marshall Cavendish will continue this with streets of other cities in Malaysia.

Details

Name: Kuala Lumpur Street Names
Authors: Mariana Isa & Maganjeet Kaur
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited
Year of Publication: 2015
ISBN: 978-981-4561-54-9 (paperback)

Buying

At time of writing, Kuala Lumpur Street Names is not yet on Amazon, but Singapore Street Names (click to enter Amazon) is available.

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About this website

Hello and thanks for reading this page. My name is Timothy and my hobby is in describing places so that I can share the information with the general public. My website has become the go to site for a lot of people including students, teachers, journalists, etc. whenever they seek information on places, particularly those in Malaysia and Singapore. I have been doing this since 5 January 2003, for over twenty years already. You can read about me at Discover Timothy. By now I have compiled information on thousands of places, mostly in Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore, and I continue to add more almost every day. My goal is to describe every street in every town in Malaysia and Singapore.