"In legacy council it was unique in that suburb, obviously there's lots of School Rds, Beach Rds all around the city, and to prevent that happening again I think they've gone a little bit too far," she said.
"A road name that's used in Pukekohe can't be used in Upper Harbour, but in reality that's not going to get the postal service or the emergency services lost. But neighbouring local boards areas it would . . . I actually think it's made it really difficult and developers are really struggling to come up with ideas."
Auckland Council has a list of guidelines it recommends local boards adhere to when deciding on road names.
The guidelines state road names must not pose a risk to emergency services or cause confusion, and must reflect the unique heritage of an area. Using the names of living people is "not encouraged".
Whyte said developers often suggest themes when proposing names for roads in new subdivisions.
"You've got existing subdivisons that are all birds, or they're all streams, or they're all water bodies, a period from history or something - but that doesn't always work," she said.
"We had a developer in Albany whose proposal was rooms in the Palace of Versailles. We had a real problem with that because although the names themselves met the criteria in that they were unique, they had absolutely no relevance to Albany. It would be a bit odd to be living in a street in Albany related to a palace in France.
"We've had things like mountain ranges in the Himalayas or rivers in Europe, so there's all sorts."
Whyte said there was also a focus on introducing more road names in Te Reo Maori.
"We're trying to have themes around native flora and fauna and having names that use English and Te Reo Maori interchangeably.
"We have to be really careful because some of the names are really long, and sometimes people make mistakes on whether there are macrons on them. When we use Te Reo we've got to use it properly."
Although using road names that aren't in English reduces the chances of doubling up, Whyte said there was also the potential for some unintended consequences.
"There's some words that we found out during our road-naming episodes that they're actually offensive in other languages. It's been a minefield but it's also really quite fascinating.
"We've got a few Asian developers and they bring us suggestions which reflect good luck and wellbeing in their culture. In Albany we've got things to do with the moon and the sun and silver and gold, so it does start to reflect our diversity.
"But I have to admit that some of the options we're given do raise a bit of a chuckle, so if you ever do hear laughter at a local board meeting it's quite often related to a slightly unusual road name suggestion."
Whyte said she was recently talking to a friend who owns a property in Albany in a traditionally named street, having also owned a rental property in a themed area.
"We've got an abundance of birds and bugs . . . their rental property was on Spotted Wren Drive, off Mollusc and off Weta, they were having a laugh because they thought it had a bit of a magical mystery feel to it, like [Sir] David Attenborough had named our streets. The intent was for it to have meaning."
NZ Post also plays a role in the road-naming process at the request of Auckland Council.
An NZ Post spokeswoman said some councils asked developers to send it a list of proposed new street names to check.
"We would then look to see if the proposed names would cause any postal issues, [such as] duplicate street names within a town [or] city or similar spelling, that may cause mail-sorting problems."
A spokesman for real estate agents Ray White said street names "definitely do have a bearing on people's purchasing decisions".
