People with ‘British’ addresses such as Queen Street or London Road are less likely to define themselves as Scottish.
Street names including the likes of ‘Royal’ and ‘Regent’ impacted on residents’ identities, researchers found.
A study by the University of St Andrews compared street names in Scottish Westminster parliamentary constituencies with a recent population census asking people about their nationality.
In areas where there were fewer union-themed street names people were more likely to regard themselves only as Scots.
Dr Daniel Oto-PeralÃas, of the university’s School of Management, said: “Street names are cultural markers of a town and its history and can be used as a rich source of information to create socio-cultural indicators at the regional and local level.
“With the help of data software with text analysis capabilities, it is feasible to analyse hundreds of thousands of street names to extract themes and trends capturing the culture and history of the population.”
The research into British street names also found those with religion-related addresses, such as Church Street or Chapelhill, were more likely to regard themselves as Christian.
The findings were published in the Journal of Economic Geography.
