Calle Elvira

A minor street in Fuente del Berro (Salamanca district) whose name preserves a woman’s first name of Germanic root, without any source identifying the actual person. It appears in the Official Street Register with code 261800 and a conventional registration date of 01/01/1902; the first entrances appear around 1935, in the Iturbe development.

Elvira, in its Visigothic form, sounded Gelvira, and in the late 19th century it filled Madrid’s minor street map. No source gives it a face: neither the classic chroniclers, nor the municipal encyclopedia, nor the Council itself identify the woman honored. It is said she may have owned the land or been a relative of the developer, though nothing confirms it. The street arose in Fuente del Berro, within the Iturbe I development, opened in May 1926. Behind it was Gregorio Iturbe, a Navarrese industrialist who from 1912 promoted housing. The first residents appear in the records around 1935. The official register enters the Calle de Elvira on 1 January 1902, a filler date the administration assigns to streets with no known exact registration.

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