What's the best way to get to Bash Street, kids?

The Bash Street Kids (PA)

Roads are often named after famous residents. Usually it is an honour bestowed on the most distinguished in order to give them immortality, ranging from streets bearing the moniker of Queen Victoria to that paying tribute to Alan Turing.

You do wonder, however, what people 100 years from now will make of streets such as Lara Croft Way in Derby, which celebrates the videogame star of Tomb Raider. Or the current plan being pushed through Dundee City Council to create a real-life Bash Street, named, unsurprisingly, after the unruly Bash Street Kids from The Beano.

And yet such frivolities – which councillors love for the publicity and potential for tourism – can be far better than some road names that must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Penny Lane in Liverpool, which is most famous for its association with The Beatles, actually commemorates the 18th-century slave trader James Penny; Mosley Street in Manchester has connections to British fascist leader Oswald, although it was named after his family rather than him.

You won't get this controversy with a fictional character.