The Barcelona Street Naming Commission is the municipal body tasked with managing the new denominations, name changes and the installation of memory elements around the city.

Eight new names

The last session of the year by the commission approved the following:

• In Nou Barris: the Rotonda de Manolo Vital, a roundabout located in the neighbourhood of Torre Baró, will pay homage to the local activist, founder and chair of the Nou Barris residents’ association (Associació de Veïns del Sector de Vallbona – Torre Baró – Trinitat). A Barcelona bus driver, Vital and other local people were responsible for taking a number 47 bus to demand a public transport connection for their neighbourhood.
• In Ciutat Vella: the space without a name between numbers 6 and 12 in C/ Elsabets and the Jardí dels Tarongers will be named Passatge de la Casa de Misericòrdia de Barcelona. The naming comes at the request of the private foundation Casa de Misericòrdia de Barcelona and, with the District Office in agreement, will remember the shelter for the homeless, founded in 1584, which would become an active social institution in the neighbourhood of El Raval.
• In L’Eixample: at the request of the Associació de Veïns de la Sagrada Família, various name changes will be made to more accurately and conscientiously recognise the women who certain spaces were named after. Thus, the Passatge de Simó will now be called Passatge de Francesca Simon, owner of the land belonging to the Torre Vermella from 1867. Passatge de Font will become Passatge de Paula Font, owner of a property located in the space known as Joc de la Rutlla. Finally, Passatge de Gaiolà will become Passatge de Matilde de Gaiolà, owner of part of the land occupied by this street, between1862 and 1873.
• In Gràcia: in the neighbourhood of El Coll, some gardens will be named after Pepita Pardell Terrade (1928-2019), an illustrator and pioneer in animated film. Better known as Maite, the name under which she signed her work, she was the author of the first full-length animated film in Catalan, Desperta ferro (1990).
• In Sants-Montjuïc: the result of a local participatory process, in 2016 the proposal was made to give the name of Jardins de la Rambla de Sants to the section covering the train tracks between Riera Blanca and C/ Jocs Florals, in the neighbourhood of La Bordeta. The Street Naming Commission has now definitively approved this name. In addition, in Poble-sec there will be a change of name for the Jardins de Mossèn Cinto Verdaguer, which will become the Jardins de Jacint Verdaguer.

An information panel and memory plaques

The commission also approved the installation of information panels and memory plaques in homage to organisations and individuals from the city:

• In L’Eixample, a memory information panel for the Fundació de la Unión Militar Democrática (UMD), at Passeig de Sant Joan, 29, where the dissident military organisation against Franco was founded on 31 August 1974.
• In L’Eixample: a plaque will be installed at the house where Àlvar d’Orriols i Lletget (1894-1976) was born, the poet, musician, playwright and forerunner of popular theatre.
• In Sant Andreu: a plaque at C/ Grau,36, will remember Carlo del Monte, the artistic name of Hel·leni Barjau Vallmitjana (1923-2000).