There are various reasons why Buffalo streets are named the way they are. A lot of the names come from the developers who helped build the neighborhood.
Take for instance the streets off Broadway while you head east under the rail bridge near Memorial Drive. They all have have distinctive German names. The reason for this is that a group of German developers purchased much of this land in the 1890s…Edward L. and Frank Koons, Robert C. Titus, and Frank Goodyear. This group saw Polonia expanding and took off where Joseph Bork left off.
The names will sound familiar to people because they have streets named after them in succession. My guess is that they did this unpurpose.
You can click on the image above to get a feel for the area I writing about and note the German names.
There actually used to be a sizeable German community in that vicinity a century ago. St. Joachim’s at Empire & Miller was founded as a German parish. Interesting map – I never realized before how many German street names were concentrated around there.