News 12 sits down with Brooklyn historian Rob Schewieger to learn history of borough street names

Many Brooklyn residents have different ways of pronouncing some of the streets in the borough, so News 12 Brooklyn sat down with a historian to find out how some Brooklyn streets got their names. Historian

News 12 Staff

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Aug 27, 2014, 6:37 AM

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Updated 3,861 days ago

Many Brooklyn residents have different ways of pronouncing some of the streets in the borough, so News 12 Brooklyn sat down with a historian to find out how some Brooklyn streets got their names.

Historian Rob Schewieger sets the record straight on how to pronounce some names like Kosciuszko and Schermerhorn in his book called "Brooklyn by Name."

Many of the notorious tongue-twister names can be blamed on the Dutch, who first settled in Brooklyn and named the streets after themselves.

There is also a lot of history that went into naming the roads traveled today. In Sheepshead Bay, many streets were named after surveyors who made the street grid back in the 1800s.

Joralemon Street and DeKalb Avenue are also highly debated in regard to pronunciation. Schewieger says both are named after old families.

No matter how they are pronounced, residents might want to think about the history behind the street signs and how they got there in the first place.