The HCM City Department of Culture and Sports recently explained to the Ho Chi Minh City People's Council about the work of naming and renaming streets and public works in the city. Currently, the city has 311 streets with duplicate names due to historical reasons.

The primary reason for these identical street names is that Ho Chi Minh City was formed from three separate administrative units: Saigon, Cho Lon, and Gia Dinh. Each of these units named their streets independently, and when they were merged, the duplicate names emerged.

Ho Chi Minh City currently has 311 streets sharing 132 names due to the historical factors mentioned above. Additionally, between 1975 and 1995, districts and wards often named new streets on their own due to a lack of specific regulations on naming authority.

Since the establishment of the committee for naming and renaming streets and public works in Ho Chi Minh City, the city has regulated that the same historical figure should not be used for different streets. This has made the process of naming and renaming streets and public works more systematic and less prone to duplication.

Moreover, according to the regulations on naming and renaming streets, issued with Decree 91 in 2005 by the Government, it is also stipulated that streets and public works that have familiar names deeply connected with the nation's or local history and culture should not be renamed.

In cases where streets or public works have names that are deemed historically or culturally insignificant, inappropriate according to national customs, or not representative of prominent figures, and if these names cause negative societal impacts, renaming is necessary but should be carefully considered.

Therefore, streets with duplicate names in different districts, a result of historical circumstances, should not be renamed to avoid directly impacting the residents' lives and activities.

In the future, the HCM City Department of Culture and Sports will coordinate with districts to review duplicate street names within the same area or among new streets in ongoing projects to propose reasonable solutions.

Recently, the HCM City Department of Culture and Sports proposed to expand the database of street and public work names in districts and Thu Duc City. The department also signed contracts with professional associations to research the names of entrepreneurs, historical figures, and landmarks to enrich the database of street names.

PV