How many names has Jeziorki?

Last night I was returning home from the airport. "Jeziorki" I informed the taxi driver. "That's off Puławska, turn right into Karczunkowska?" he asked. It's rare for a Warsaw taxi driver to have heard of us here in Jeziorki - but this one did (he was from Pruszków, by the way). But usually they shrug, ask for directions or tap the street name into the GPS. Jeziorki, until quite recently, when the new-style blue-and-red street signs went up (here and here, replacing the old white-on-blue ones, was a rather indistinct area that blended indistinctly with Pyry, Dąbrówka, Dawidy and Grabów. And within this indistinct, inchoate, area, lots of different place names. Dawidy Poduchowne. Karczunek. Jeziorki Polskie. Jeziorki Niemieckie (!). Nowe Jeziorki. Zgorzała Nad Jeziorem (!!!). This last one, incidentally, is where, according to a recent atlas (Warszawa Plan Miasta Skala 1:20 000, Wydawnictwo Kartograficzne), we live. Almost as if every farmstead was its own, separate hamlet with its own separate name - and its own separate history. Every local map I'd look at would have different place names scattered across this small locality.

Ul. Trombity: That would be Zgorzała nad Jeziorem?

But now the City Hall is imposing order on place names. Streets that were once in Pyry (posh before the war, says my mother-in-law) are now in Dąbrówka (not so posh). Jeziorki Polskie is now Jeziorki Północne (that's everything between ul. Baletowa and the Metro's umbilical cord), while Nowe Jeziorki is now Jeziorki Południowe (that's us, south of Baletowa, down to Warsaw's city limits). Old place names are disappearing, remembered only by the original locals, a dwindling minority around here, and historians of local topography. But the upside is, surely, that in a few years time, when I get into a taxi the chap will know what I'm referring to when I say: "Jadziem Panie Jeziorki!" . This time last year: On the Road to Białystok Eddie and famous Polish 3rd December birthdays Where the place, upon the heath... Before the double deckers and the FLIRTS - the Radom line The most widely Googled page of my blog, ever.