Station names and their origins

Metro station names start off seemingly as simple, utilitarian, secondary references — simply derived from the originals, those of nearby geographical features. However, a metro station is a major feature of the city, and will soon become a landmark and a point of reference, highlighting a name that might have been unremarkable among many names in the area, perhaps even renaming its entire surrounding district.

As we examine the names of our metro stations, both patterns and eccentricities emerge. Find out more about the origins of our station names below.

Geographical sources of station names

In North America, station names are often those of cross streets, indicating where metro lines intersect with the gridded street network common to this continent. (In some cities, such as New York, Chicago, and Toronto, this is systematic to the point that where more than one line crosses the same major street, multiple stations may end up with the same name.) In the older cities of Europe and elsewhere, city layouts more often represent connections that have organically grown between particular points—squares, important buildings and neighbourhoods, and other points of interest—and so stations often take their names from those features. Unlike train stations, there are usually numerous metro stations in any one municipality, so municipal names are rarely used; but they can be, in the case of suburban stations where the name is clear enough.

As a North American city, Montreal has a majority of its stations named for their cross streets. However, planners have prioritized avoiding duplicate station names, so a fair number of stations have been named for points of interest instead. Here’s how our station names break down:

Streets	53	77.9%
Cross streets	45	66.2%	Assomption ·  Atwater ·  Beaubien ·  Beaudry ·    Berri-UQAM* ·  Cadillac ·  Cartier ·  Côte-des-Neiges ·  Côte-Sainte-Catherine ·  Côte-Vertu ·  Crémazie ·  De la Savane ·  De l’Église ·  D’Iberville ·  Du Collège ·  Fabre ·  Georges-Vanier ·  Guy-Concordia ·  Henri-Bourassa ·  Honoré-Beaugrand ·  Jarry ·  Jean-Talon* ·  Jolicoeur ·  Joliette ·  Langelier ·  Laurier ·  Lucien-L’Allier ·  Monk ·  Mont-Royal ·  Namur ·  Papineau ·  Parc ·  Peel ·  Pie-IX ·  Plamondon ·  Préfontaine ·  Radisson ·  Rosemont ·  Saint-Laurent ·  Saint-Michel ·  Sauvé ·  Sherbrooke ·  Vendôme ·  Verdun ·  Viau * As transfer stations, Berri-UQAM and Jean-Talon are named for the cross street of the green line and orange line stations respectively. Berri-UQAM was originally named Berri-de Montigny for both cross streets, and Jean-Talon was originally an orange line station only.
Parallel or other streets	8	11.8%	Acadie ·  Charlevoix ·  De Castelnau ·  De la Concorde ·  Édouard-Montpetit ·  Frontenac ·  LaSalle ·  Lionel-Groulx
Buildings and institutions	10	14.7%
Universities	5	7.4%	Berri-UQAM ·  Guy-Concordia ·  Longueuil–Université-de-Sherbrooke ·  McGill ·  Université-de-Montréal ·
Other educational institutions	2	2.9%	Montmorency ·  Villa-Maria
Other facilities	3	4.4%	Bonaventure ·  Place-des-Arts ·  Square-Victoria–OACI
Other	9	13.2%
Parks and squares	6	8.8%	Angrignon ·  Champ-de-Mars ·  Jean-Drapeau ·  Place-d’Armes ·  Place-Saint-Henri ·  Square-Victoria–OACI
Cities and districts	3	4.4%	Longueuil–Université-de-Sherbrooke ·  Outremont ·   Snowdon

Note that the percentages add up to more than 100, due to some stations (Berri-UQAM, Guy-Concordia, Longueuil–Université-de-Sherbrooke, and Square-Victoria–OACI) having more than one component.

Also, some station names could fit in more than one category. For example, Côte-des-Neiges, Saint-Michel, and Verdun are named for the street they are on, but they also reflect the name of the district they are in; Préfontaine is named for Rue Préfontaine and is also located in Parc Raymond-Préfontaine; and McGill is named for McGill University but is adjacent to Avenue McGill College. I have also included Place-d’Armes, Place-Saint-Henri, and Square-Victoria as squares, even though each is also the name of the street bounding the square.

Some notes:

• Of the stations named for streets, as one would expect, the great majority have at least one entrance directly on the street in question. However, several don’t, so that a strict naming policy might have led to a different name; in most cases, they were named for a more prominent nearby street despite not being directly on it.
• De la Savane is located 153 metres north of Rue de la Savane, with Rue de Bougainville between the two.
• LaSalle is located 160 metres east of Boulevard LaSalle, on Rue Caisse, and is much closer to Rue de Rushbrooke than to Boulevard LaSalle.
• Namur is located one block (165 metres) north of Rue de Namur, and is actually on Rue Jean-Talon. (See more about its name in the namesakes section, or on its station page.)
• Papineau is located one block (95 metres) east of Avenue Papineau, and is actually between Rue Cartier and Rue Dorion.
• Parc is located 100 metres north of the end of Avenue du Parc, at the corner of Rue Hutchinson and Rue Ogilvy.
• Préfontaine is located one block (76 metres) west of Rue Préfontaine, and is actually on Rue Moreau; but it is in Parc Raymond-Préfontaine.
• Radisson is only located 50 metres east of Rue Radisson, but it is separated from that street by Rue des Groseilliers (the two streets are very close together at that point).
• At Sherbrooke, one entrance is 120 metres north of Rue Sherbrooke; the other is closer but is actually between Rue de Rigaud and Rue de Malines.
• Viau is located 140 metres west of Rue Viau, at the corner of Avenue Pierre-De Coubertin and Rue Théodore.
• Four more unusual cases:
• Outremont is most likely named for the borough; there is an Avenue d’Outremont, but it is one block (110 metres) away, and parallel to the station rather than crossing it.
• Snowdon is named for the Snowdon district, where it is located, and was probably inspired by the Snowdon junction, a streetcar junction formerly located at Boulevard Décarie and Chemin Queen-Mary, 175 metres west of the present station. There is a Rue Snowdon, but it is located 230 metres south of that intersection.
• Bonaventure is named for Place Bonaventure, adjacent to the station. There is a Rue Bonaventure, whose name ultimately is from the same source (see the station page for details), but it is more than 400 metres away, closer to Lucien-L’Allier.
• Berri-UQAM was originally named Berri-de Montigny, and was planned at the corner of Rue Berri and Rue De Montigny. However, when it was opened, Rue De Montigny had been merged into Boulevard De Maisonneuve (due to the construction of the green line of the metro, as it happens), and the station kept the name for more than 20 years without ever being on Rue De Montigny! A stub of the original Rue De Montigny still existed (and exists) more than 560 metres away near Place des Arts.
• Some stations aren’t named for their most obvious cross street probably because that name was already “taken” by an existing station:
• De Castelnau crosses Boulevard Saint-Laurent (it is parallel to Rue De Castelnau), but Saint-Laurent station already existed.
• Fabre is on Avenue Papineau, but Papineau station already existed.
• Lionel-Groulx crosses Avenue Atwater (it is parallel to Avenue Lionel-Groulx), but Atwater station already existed. (The street was renamed to allow the station to be named after Lionel Groulx — see below — but the station was already going to be named Albert after the previous name of the same street.)
• Namur is on Rue Jean-Talon, but Jean-Talon station already existed.
• Villa-Maria is on Avenue de Monkland, but Monk station already existed (not on the same street).

Namesakes

Metro stations, then, are generally named after other existing geographical features: streets, squares, parks, and the like. But those features are themselves named for something, for which the station is now named. In many cases this is a person. Who are these people—whose names are represented in our metro map?

Here is a breakdown of the namesakes behind our station names.

(Note: The divisions into categories are somewhat arbitrary and based on my sense of what they are best known for. For example, Honoré-Beaugrand is under municipal politicians although he was also an author and journalist; Montmorency is under clergy although François de Montmorency is now a saint—in fact he was canonized after the station was opened. Note too that there may be more layers of meaning to a name; for example, Place-Saint-Henri is named for Saint Henry, but indirectly for Sulpician priest Henri-Auguste Roux. Where multiple namesakes are possible, I have picked the most likely.)

Some analysis:

• Metro station names represent 49 individual human namesakes; two stations (Sherbrooke and Longueuil–Université-de-Sherbrooke) have the same namesake, John Coape Sherbrooke (one via a street, the other via a university named for a city). Note that the namesake of Sauvé station is unknown, but is assumed to be a local landowner.
• Only four metro stations take their names from women, representing 8.2% of individual human namesakes and 5.9% of stations. Of those women, two are saints (Catherine of Alexandria and the Virgin Mary), one is a queen (Victoria of the United Kingdom), and one is the mother of a land promoter (Rose Dandurand, née Phillips). Not a single metro station is named for a woman known for her own achievements in Quebec or Canada.
• One station named for a woman has in fact been lost: Île-Sainte-Hélène, named for Saint Helena and indirectly for Hélène de Boullé, wife of Samuel de Champlain, was renamed Jean-Drapeau in 2001.
• Not a single metro station is named for a non-white person—except for the Virgin Mary.
• Of the human namesakes (besides ancient saints), 11 (22.4%) were born in Montreal, 14 (28.6%) elsewhere in Quebec, 11 (22.4%) in France, 5 (10.2%) in the United Kingdom, and 2 (4.1%) in Italy.
• Five (10.2%) were born before 1600, 11 (22.4%) were born in the 1600s, 9 (18.4%) in the 1700s, 21 (42.9%) were born in the 1800s, and 2 (4.1%) in the 1900s. The earliest born namesake (besides saints) is Simon Després dit Berry de Blois (Berri-UQAM), born in 1621. The most recently born namesake is Jean Drapeau), born in 1916.
• There are two cases in which a street name was changed specifically to allow a metro station name to be used. Rue Albert was renamed Avenue Lionel-Groulx in 1973 and Rue de l’Aqueduc was renamed Rue Lucien-L’Allier in 1979, to allow Lionel-Groulx and Lucien-L’Allier stations to be named for the two recently deceased public figures.
• Parc des Îles was similarly renamed Parc Jean-Drapeau in advance of the renaming of Île-Sainte-Hélène station to Jean-Drapeau, but it was intended as a commemoration in its own right given Drapeau’s role in Expo 67, not solely as an excuse to allow the station to be renamed.
• In an unusual case, Rue Arnoldi was renamed Rue de Namur in 1980, during the planning of Namur station. The name had previously been used for a nearby street, and had been kept by a CTCUM bus garage; it was apparently used for the station because no more appropriate name was available, with Rue Arnoldi renamed to support this choice.

The blue line extension

From the beginning of construction on the blue line extension, it was clear that names were going to be an issue, and the names used at first for the stations — Pie-IX, Viau, Lacordaire, Langelier, and Anjou — were repeatedly stated to be provisional only. The reason was clear: of the five stations, three are located at the corner of major streets (Boulevard Pie-IX, Rue Viau, and Boulevard Langelier) that already have stations named for them on the green line to the south. Of course, the extension itself runs along Rue Jean-Talon, which has a station as well.

The STM explained that the stations’ names would be the subject of consultation with the surrounding communities and careful deliberation by a special committee including politicians, STM staff, historians, and community groups,² and would aim to improve the representation of women and cultural diversity in station names.³

After more than three and a half years of work, the committee announced its decision on September 9, 2025: the stations would be named Vertières, Mary-Two-Axe-Earley, Cesira-Parisotto, Madeleine-Parent, and Anjou.⁴

These choices of names have several unique features. Some notes:

• One of the most obvious aspects is that three of the stations will be the first whose names commemorate Quebec women for their own accomplishments: Indigenous rights activist Mary Two-Axe Earley, nun and humanitarian Cesira Parisotto (Mother Anselme), and labour and feminist leader Madeleine Parent. This will bring the proportion of women up to 13.2% of human namesakes and 9.6% of all station names.
• More subtly, these stations will also be the first to take their names directly from the names of the women concerned. Even the few current stations whose names derive from women’s names today (Côte-Sainte-Catherine, Villa-Maria, Square-Victoria–OACI, and Rosemont) have the names embedded in other toponyms, rather than naming them directly, as with men such as Wilfrid Laurier or Jean Drapeau.
• Mary-Two-Axe-Earley will be the first station named for a non-white person (other than early saints) and the first named for an Indigenous person. Vertières station, for its part, commemorates an important event in the history of the African diaspora: the final battle in the liberation of Haiti.
• Vertières and Cesira-Parisotto stations commemorate the presence of cultural communities — specifically, the Haitian and Italian communities — in the local neighbourhood.
• Madeleine Parent (born 1918) will succeed Jean Drapeau as the most recently born namesake.
• Four of the five toponyms (all except Anjou) are entirely new, not derived from existing toponymy. This is not unprecedented — compare Lucien-L’Allier and Lionel-Groulx. However, while it was initially announced that nearby streets would likely be renamed to anchor these station names,³ as was done in those cases, no such renaming has yet been announced. That would make these four stations the first with names not connected to the surrounding toponymy. While this is comparatively unusual worldwide, a few cities have done similarly, such as Paris (tramway line 3b, also done to increase the representation of women) and Santo Domingo (commemorating figures in Dominican history), as well as individual stations in other cities such as Metro Center in Washington D.C. and Puerta del Sur in Madrid, both named for their position and role in the network, or Pimisi station in Ottawa, named to increase Indigenous representation.
• One station, Cesira-Parisotto, is receiving a unique name despite its provisional name (Lacordaire) not clashing with an existing station.
• The only station to have kept its provisional name is Anjou; it was decided that it was important to keep the geographical name for the terminus station, in order to help users orient themselves.⁵

Length and composition

• The longest station name is Longueuil–Université-de-Sherbrooke, at 34 characters. When it was renamed in 2003, it replaced Université-de-Montréal, at 22 characters.
• The shortest name was formerly Guy, until it was renamed Guy-Concordia in 1988. Today, Monk, Parc, Peel, and Viau are tied for shortest, at 4 characters.
• The longest single-word station names are Bonaventure, Montmorency, and Préfontaine, at 11 characters each. The shortest multi-word station name is Pie-IX, at 6 characters; it is also the only station containing a numeral.
• All letters of the alphabet are represented in the station names. The only station containing a Z is Crémazie.
• Thirteen station names (19.1%) contain accented letters. The only station with more than one is Université-de-Montréal. The only accented letters represented are É, È, and Ô. The only name with an È is Du Collège (with the blue line extension, it will be joined by Vertières). Vendôme is the only name with an Ô not in the word “côte.” Édouard-Montpetit is the only name that starts with an accented letter.
• Remarkably, all of these facts except Ô changed when Île-Sainte-Hélène was renamed to Jean-Drapeau: it had three accented letters, began with an accented letter, contained an È, and contained the network’s only Î.
• The only station with a lowercase letter on the station nameplates is McGill, spelled with a lowercase c. Before it was renamed Berri-UQAM in 1988, the nameplates at Berri-de Montigny station had “de” in lowercase.
• Four stations have multi-part names: Berri-UQAM, Guy-Concordia, Longueuil–Université-de-Sherbrooke, and Square-Victoria–OACI. The two elements of Longueuil–Université-de-Sherbrooke and Square-Victoria–OACI are joined with en dashes (–) because one of the elements being joined contains hyphens itself. All of the stations acquired their current multi-part names by name changes, but Berri-UQAM was opened as Berri-de Montigny, the only station to have a multi-part name from its beginning.

Changes

The following stations have undergone significant name changes since their opening:

• Uniquely, all three stations on the yellow line have had their names changed.
• Other, minor changes in the uses of hyphens, spelling the word saint or sainte in full, etc., have occurred from time to time. One of the more visible such changes is that L’Assomption station began to be listed as Assomption on maps by 1994, although the station nameplates still display the article.
• One station has had its official pronunciation changed: in 2022, the vocal announcements for Cadillac station were changed from “cadi-lac” to “cadi-yac,” in line with usual French pronunciation.

Structure

Understanding toponyms

In French, a place name or toponym consists of three parts: a generic, or common noun indicating the type of place (e.g. rue, province, station); a specific, the section that is the distinctive part of the name; and the articulation (charnière) that is required to join the two together, if any, usually the preposition de and its different forms (du, de la, de l’, des). The generic is written in lower case (unlike English), as is the articulation; the specific is capitalized and (in Quebec usage and in the case of man-made structures), hyphenated, both according to particular rules.

Some examples:

Notice the last four examples: An entire name (generic plus specific) can become the specific for another name. Thus, l’île du Prince-Édouard is an island (i.e. a natural feature) whose specific is “Prince-Édouard,” while province de l’Île-du-Prince-Édouard is a province (i.e. an administrative feature) whose specific is “Île-du-Prince-Édouard”; the typography is different even though the two are almost entirely coextensive. (As a result, a coastal islet could be part of l’Île-du-Prince-Édouard, but not l’île du Prince-Édouard…)

As for metro stations, a station name is usually treated as if it had the generic “station” and no articulation, followed by a specific made up of either the full name, or the specific alone, of whatever it is named after. Accordingly the whole specific of the station’s name is hyphenated, as follows:

Non-conforming names

However, here’s where it gets difficult. As mentioned, when one place name gives rise to another, the specific of the new place name consists either of the whole of the old place name, or its specific alone without the articulation. (The new place name might need an articulation, but that won’t be part of the specific.) But in everyday use, people frequently shorten place names—especially ones where the specific is fairly short—to the specific and the articulation: people usually say c’est sur Des Pins or c’est sur De la Montagne, not c’est sur Pins or c’est sur Montagne. So, when stations were named for places such as rue de l’Église, rue du Collège, or rue de la Savane, it felt natural to name them De l’Église, Du Collège, and De la Savane.

However, strictly speaking, that’s wrong: the choice for each station should have been between either station Église, station Collège, station Savane (specifics only; compare station Mont-Royal) or station Rue-de-l’Église, station Rue-du-Collège, station Rue-de-la-Savane (full name; compare station Place-Saint-Henri). But none of those possibilities apparently felt natural.

The discrepancy appears to have come to light sometime before the opening of the blue line, which was due to include stations named L’Acadie and Du Parc. Accordingly, the future stations were renamed Acadie and Parc, as they remain today. Likewise, transit authorities did change one name to match the rules: L’Assomption became Assomption (perhaps because it didn’t contain the full articulation), although the station’s nameplates have never been changed. However, the other existing stations remained as they were, and decades later, De la Concorde joined them (rumour has it, to reduce any confusion with Guy-Concordia).

Note also that De Castelnau and D’Iberville are a different matter, since their De is part of the person’s name (known as a “nobiliary particle” because it used to represent nobility). That’s why it’s capitalized in rue De Castelnau.

The great renaming fiasco of 2014

As the renaming of Square-Victoria–OACI approached in 2014, the STM and the Commission de Toponymie decided to attack these inconsistencies once and for all. At its May meeting, the Commission made the following changes to the official toponyms of 20 stations:⁶

The idea was to definitively decide how articulations would work in station names. From now on, they would work the same way they work in street names: station de la Côte-des-Neiges, just like chemin de la Côte-des-Neiges; station du Mont-Royal, just like avenue du Mont-Royal. Stations named for cities or districts, like Namur (a city in Belgium) or Outremont, took de just as roads named after such places do. (And the Sieur de Cadillac got his nobiliary particle back.)

This passed unnoticed until July, when the news story broke.⁷ The public was baffled by the seemingly pedantic change; neither the STM nor the Commission de Toponymie had much success explaining the motivation for the changes, nor in clarifying that the changes (aside from Square-Victoria–OACI) only affected how the names would be written in sentences, not on maps or nameplates, and would therefore not cost anything.

Ultimately, the STM backtracked, and the Commission de Toponymie reverted the changes and got rid of the added articulations at its November 2014 meeting.^{8, 9} Ultimately, the only lasting outcome of the whole adventure was that officially, the du/de l’/de la in names like station de la Savane are now considered to be articulations. As a result, you would write la station de la Savane (lower case d and l) in a sentence, just like la rue de la Savane. But since, exceptionally, the articulation is still treated as part of the short-form name, you would write De la Savane (upper case D, lower case l) when standing by itself (in a list, on a map, etc.). Tout ça pour ça!

Most recent update: 2026-09-26

References