The impact of religious dimensions on nomenclature of streets in Saudi Arabia with special reference to Shaqrā Province A toponomastic approach

The study investigates the impact of semantic domains related to religious theme on the process of naming streets in Saudi Arabia as represented in Riyadh City, Shaqrā’ Province, as well as the provinces and provincial villages around it, namely, Mirāt, Ushaiqir and Sājir. Based on 86 randomly selected street names, the study attempts to validate the reliability of the premise that the patterns of street names in Saudi Arabia reveal the major characteristics and ideologies prevailing in the milieu in which these names are used. A visitor to Saudi Arabia can hardly avoid being curious about the patterns of street names，such as the highly frequent occurrence of religious theme in almost every district. Nevertheless, when people in Saudi Arabia, whether citizens or expatriates, are asked if they had discussed such patterns of street names, they admitted that they had not, yet they might get interested in them.
Dr. Mohamed Arafa Mohamed Hilal
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Occasional Papers
Vol. 67: July (2019)
ISSN 1110-2721
The linguistic branch which studies names is called “onomastics” derived from the Greek word “onoma” meaning names. The branch of onomastics which studies place names is called “toponomastics”. This word is derived from the Greek word “tópos” which means place, and “ónoma” which means name