Juliet Street

Juliet Street
Neighborhood	South Oakland
Origin of name	Juliet Semple, daughter of Samuel Semple, early landowner
➤ Joliet Street (1870s)

George T. Fleming says that Juliet Street is named for Juliet Semple, the daughter of Samuel Semple (for whom Semple Street is named). Most of South Oakland and part of Central Oakland were part of two tracts of land surveyed in 1789, one under the name of Samuel Semple and another ostensibly under the name of Juliet Semple, who was just eight years old at the time.

On a modern street map, it seems obvious that Juliet Street must be named for Juliet, the female protagonist in Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet. Nearby streets in South Oakland also have Shakespearean names, including Romeo Street (parallel to Juliet Street), Hamlet Street, Ophelia Street, and Cato Street. But Juliet Street is significantly older than most of these others. It appears on maps as early as 1862. Oakland was annexed into the City of Pittsburgh in 1868, along with most of the East End. Juliet Street first appears in the city street directory in Boone's 1872 edition as Joliet Street, which was also the name given in the Hopkins atlas of that year, and today's Romeo Street was called Homer Street at that time. The matching names Romeo and Juliet were applied later. The original name of Juliet Street was restored by 1876, and Homer Street was changed to Romeo in 1881.