Calle del Oriana

The masculine article marks the origin. It is not “de la Oriana” but del Oriana, because the name points not to a woman but to a ship: the Oriana, a transatlantic steamer launched in 1906 for the Pacific Steam Navigation Company. It covered ocean routes for two decades until it was scrapped around 1927. The ship’s own naming did look to a woman, or rather to a fictional character. Oriana is the princess of England, daughter of King Lisuarte and beloved of Amadís in Amadís de Gaula, the chivalric romance that Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo set down in 1508. From those legendary loves the name passed to the keel of a liner, and from the keel to the streets of southern Madrid. The street runs along the edge of Delicias toward Méndez Álvaro, an area remade by the railway overhaul of Atocha. The masculine article, “del,” is the only visible trace that the name arrived by sea and not through a princess.