By Will Katcher | WKatcher@masslive.com
Publication Date: 2025-12-03 16:36:00
Brendan Libby was 14 years old and bored.
It was 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic was still in full swing and the Brookline teenager was messing around online.
Scanning through Google Maps, he noticed a small, unnamed side street near his home. Really, it wasn’t anything more than a parking lot that turned into a driveway leading to the dumpsters behind an apartment complex on the Brookline-West Roxbury line.
But what if it weren’t? What if it were actually a real street dedicated to Baseball Hall of Famer Rabbit Maranville, one of Libby’s favorite old-timey ballplayers and owner of what he thought was an especially “epic” name.
Google Maps lets users suggest changes to the names of locations on its platform. Libby submitted “Maranville Street” as the real name of the nameless West Roxbury side street off of Independence Drive.
He was shocked when Google Maps accepted the suggestion.
