street name
3
8.2
- noun
- /strit neɪm/
- Slang
:
alias
- Is that your real name or your street name?
- only by street names
Examples
-
What's his street name?
-
It was his street name.
-
Until he caught a case where everything led to one man... known only by his street name, the Engineer.
-
It's his rap name or street name or something.
-
Any good dancer has a street name.
-
- They're our street names.
-
his street name was Jimmy Fredericks.
-
They corrected information about youths' names and addresses (gang youths had street names and often used aliases).
Academic text (1997) -
People often use their street name instead of their real name in the community.
-
His street name is known by everyone in the block due to his dancing skills.
Synonyms
A familiar name used instead of someone's real name
How Official
4
1.4
19
3.6
64
7.0
- Slang
3
8.2
- Informal
49
2.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The financial-jargon sense 'securities held in a broker's name' is a specialized, non-literal use that cannot be inferred from the ordinary meanings of 'street' and 'name' (a B1 learner would most likely interpret it as 'the name of a street'). This domain-specific extension is essentially idiomatic and unpredictable from the constituents, so learners who know the words but not the term will not derive the intended meaning.
Etymology
The phrase street name may come from city life where people use a special name 'on the street', a nickname friends and neighbours know better than their real name. So it means the name someone uses in the community instead of their birth name.