Others derive a name from caprice, as Jamaica row, John, Thomas, and Philip streets.
Some, from a desire of imitating the metropolis, as, Fleet-street, Snow-hill, Ludgate-hill, Cheapside, and Friday-street.
Some again, from local causes, as High-street, from its elevation, St. Martin's-lane, Church-street, Cherry-street, originally an orchard, Chapel-street, Bartholomew-row, Mass-house-lane, Old and New Meeting-streets, Steelhouse-lane, Temple-row and Temple-street, also Pinfold-street, from a pinfold at No. 85, removed in 1752.
Moor-street, anciently Mole-street, from the eminence on one side, or the declivity on the other.
Park-street seems to have acquired its name by being appropriated to the private use of the lord of the manor, and, except at the narrow end next Digbeth, contained only the corner house to the south, entering Shut-lane, No. 82, lately taken down, which was called The Lodge.
Spiceal-street, anciently Mercer-street, from the number of mercers shops; and as the professors of that trade dealt in grocery, it was promiscuously called Spicer-street. The present name is only a corruption of the last.
The spot, now the Old Hinkleys, was a close, till about 1720, in which horses were shown at the fair, then held in Edgbaston-street. It was since a brick-yard, and contained only one hut, in which the brick-maker slept.
The tincture of the smoky shops, with all their black furniture, for weilding gun-barrels, which afterwards appeared on the back of Small-brooke-street, might occasion the original name Inkleys; ink is well known; leys, is of British derivation, and means grazing ground; so that the etymology perhaps is Black pasture.
The Butts; a mark to shoot at, when the bow was the fashionable instrument of war, which the artist of Birmingham knew well how to make, and to use.
Gosta Green (Goose-stead-Green) a name of great antiquity, now in decline; once a track of commons, circumscribed by the Stafford road, now Stafford-street, the roads to Lichfield and Coleshill, now Aston and Coleshill-streets, and extending to Duke-street, the boundary of the manor.