Most Common Street Names in the US: The 2025 Census Count

Most lists of America's most common street names copy one table. It was published by the Census Bureau in 1993, and nobody at the Bureau can now say how it was made ^[538]. So we counted again from the Bureau's current files. The answer is Main, by a wide margin. The reason other lists say Second is a counting rule, and this page shows which one. Everything here comes from the TIGER/Line 2025 release ^[tiger] and can be downloaded as CSV.

The count covers 8.5 million named street features in all 3,235 counties and county equivalents. For each name we asked one plain question: how many ZIP codes have a street called this? A town has one Main Street but may have a 2nd Street and a 2nd Avenue, so ZIP codes are the fairest way to compare. If you need a realistic test address, the random name and address generator pairs real US cities with ZIP codes USPS uses there.

The 50 most common street names in the US

A name counts once per ZIP code, whatever its type or direction. So Main includes Main St, N Main St and Main Rd. Numbers written as words are folded in, so Second and 2nd are one name. The streets column is the number of separate features the Census records, which runs higher because long streets are split.

Three groups fill the list. Numbers take seven of the top 20 places. Trees take seven more: Oak, Maple, Pine, Elm, Cedar, Walnut and Willow. The rest are landmarks a town grew around, such as Church, Park and Railroad, plus Washington and Lincoln. The download has the 300 most common names.

Second Street or Main Street? Why the lists disagree

Search for this question and you will read that Second Street is number one. That claim traces back to a Census Bureau list of 76 names from 1993. It gave Second 10,866 streets and Main 7,644 ^{[538] [cars]}. When FiveThirtyEight asked about it in 2014, the Bureau said the researcher who made it could not recall the method ^[538].

Newer counts point the other way. An OpenStreetMap analysis in November 2025 found Main St the most common name ^[dactile]. A June 2026 count of OpenStreetMap names put Main St in 9,361 cities and 2nd St in 5,849 ^[roadsigns]. The USPS says there are 21,722 Main Streets, though its page gives no method and its web address says 13,000 ^[usps-facts].

We ran the 2025 Census data through several counting rules to see which one flips the answer. One detail turns out to decide it. The Census name field stores about 8,200 Main Street features as 'N Main' or 'S Main', with the direction inside the name. Take that field literally and Second wins on street count, 29,683 to 25,302. Treat S Main as Main, which is what the street sign says, and Main wins on every measure.

Grid towns also favour the numbers on a raw street count. Only 69% of 2nd streets are 2nd St; another 24% are 2nd Ave, because many grids run streets one way and avenues the other. Main is 92% Main St. So a town with a grid adds two or more numbered streets for every Main. Counting places rather than pieces removes that bias, and Main leads by 28%.

Why there are more Second Streets than First Streets

Second beats First on every rule we tried: 11,256 ZIP codes against 10,360. In 2,349 ZIP codes there is a 2nd street but no 1st street, while only 1,453 have it the other way round. The usual explanation is that a town's first street is often called Main or Front, so the numbers start at two ^[538].

We tried to test that, and the ZIP-code data does not confirm it. If Main often stood in for First, Main should be more common where First is missing. It is not. Main appears in 56% of the ZIP codes that have a 2nd but no 1st (1,325 of 2,349). It appears in 60% of the ZIP codes that have both (5,306 of 8,907).

That does not prove the story wrong. A ZIP code often spans several towns and subdivisions, so it cannot show which street a particular grid starts from. Settling it would take a town-by-town look at where each grid begins. What the data does show is the size of the effect: Second leads First by about 900 ZIP codes and 3,450 street features.

How many Main Streets are there in the US?

There are four honest answers, and they differ by a factor of four. A street named Main runs through 14,453 ZIP codes, 39% of the 37,248 ZIP codes with address ranges in the Census files. It appears in 2,962 of the 3,235 county files. The Census records 33,516 street features named Main, because one long Main Street is often stored as several. And 30,874 of those are exactly Main St, with no other type.

The USPS figure of 21,722 falls between our ZIP-code and feature counts, and its page does not say what it counts. The 1993 figure of 7,644 is the outlier. In 2014 FiveThirtyEight found a chart built from 2013 Census data with 3,238 more Main Streets than the 1993 list. Its author had counted 'Main St N' and 'N Main St' as separate streets ^[538].

The most common street name in every state

Main leads across New England, most of the Midwest and much of the South. Second leads in ten states, all in the West and the northern Plains: Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, New Mexico and Alaska. Alaska is a tie, with 2nd and Airport both in 50 ZIP codes. New Mexico is nearly one: 2nd has 85 and Main 84.

A few results stand out. Utah's second name is Center because many Utah towns number their addresses from the crossing of Main and Center streets; Logan is one ^[ugrc]. Hawaii's top three are Mamalahoa Highway, the Hawaii Belt Road and Kamehameha, named for the king. In Puerto Rico, lettered streets win: Calle A, Calle B and Calle C. The state CSV has the top ten everywhere, including the territories.

The most common street types: Road, Street and Drive

Road edges out Street, 19.6% to 18.3%. Drive is third at 15.4%, ahead of Lane, Avenue and Court. About 5% of features have no type at all, such as Broadway. Calle, written before the name, names 41,046 features on its own. The types CSV lists the top 60, using the Census abbreviations.

These abbreviations follow the US Postal Service standard in Publication 28, which lists the official suffixes and their short forms ^[pub28-c1]. Some suffixes double as names. View, Hill, Lake and Park are all official suffixes, which may be why View made the 1993 top 20 but is not among our 300 most common names.

Streets named after people

Washington is the most common person's name on American streets, as it was in 1993 ^[538]. It appears in 6,659 ZIP codes and ranks 16th overall. Lincoln, Jackson and Jefferson follow. These are surnames, so not every Jackson Street honours Andrew Jackson. The counts below include longer forms such as George Washington.

Martin Luther King Jr. is the most-studied case. The geographer Derek Alderman counted at least 955 streets named for King by 2018, in 41 states, DC and Puerto Rico ^[time-mlk]. The 2025 Census files match that footprint exactly: 41 states, DC and Puerto Rico. They also show why the streets are hard to count. The name is written at least 12 ways, from Martin Luther King Jr to M L King and Mlk.

The nine states with no King street in the 2025 files are Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota and Vermont. A 2023 Newsweek list of nine, citing Alderman, had Alaska instead of Vermont ^{[newsweek-mlk]}. The Census files hold a Martin Luther King Jr Ave in Anchorage, and no King street in Vermont.

What changed since the 1993 list

The two lists are not directly comparable, because the 1993 method is unknown. Still, the names are strikingly stable. Sixteen of the 1993 top 20 are still in today's top 21 by ZIP code. Main is the big mover, from seventh to first. View is the one name that dropped out.

One pattern is worth noting. The 1993 counts for First to Ninth sit within 7% of today's ZIP-code counts. Main does not: today's figure is 89% higher. That would fit a 1993 method that left out forms like N Main and S Main. It is only a guess, and the Census Bureau cannot confirm it ^[538].

Using real street names in test data

This list matters to anyone who builds forms, address validators or seed data. A realistic test address uses a common name, and a good test suite also covers the awkward ones. The Census files show which awkward forms are real. Every pattern below occurs in TIGER/Line 2025.

For format rules, such as when to write N or North and where the unit goes, see how a US address is structured. For a ready-made fictional address in any state, the generator below does the assembly.

Download the data

Four CSV files hold everything on this page. The 300 names with the most Census street features are ranked by ZIP codes, with counties alongside. The full names rank name and type together, such as Main St or 2nd Ave. The state file has the top ten in every state and territory, and the types file has the street types. The CSVs are CC BY 4.0, so reuse them with a link back; the Census files underneath are public domain.

Method note: the counting script downloads all 6,462 TIGER/Line 2025 FEATNAMES and ADDR files, about 1.6 GB. It kept secondary roads and local streets (Census codes S1200 and S1400) and dropped route designations such as State Hwy 154 or Co Rd 38. A street feature is one Census LINEARID. A ZIP code counts when an address range on a street of that name lies in it. On 2 October 2026, nine files came back from www2.census.gov as a 'Request Rejected' page; the script fetches those from the Census FTP mirror instead.