Petition calls for naming Prague streets after Tolkien heroes

Thousands of Czechs have signed a petition by Monday to name streets on Prague's Rohan Island, sharing the name with "Lord of the Rings" setting, after the fantasy's characters.

The island on the Vltava river north of Prague's historic centre is named after local burgess Josef Rohan, which coincides with the name given by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien to one of his saga's kingdoms.

Prague city hall has announced a plan to name new streets in the area after philosophers including Immanuel Kant, Edmund Husserl or Jacques Derrida.

But more than 10,000 signatories of the online petition have demanded the new street names should rather reflect the ambiguity of the island's name.

"The Rohan Embankment should bear Rohan names!" the petition insisted.

"How did Immanuel Kant help in the war against Saruman's hordes?" they said, referring to the evil wizard of the novel.

"Where was Husserl when the Westfold fell?" they asked.

The petitioners also want a street named by Tolkien's shieldmaiden Eowyn to "address the justified complaint" that none of the new streets is due to bear a woman's name.

Tolkien's three-volume fantasy classic was adapted as a film trilogy by director Peter Jackson in 2001-2003.

Sharing the petition on his Facebook page, Prague councillor from the Pirate Party and the city's former mayor Zdenek Hrib hailed the initiative as "a praiseworthy step".

Czechs are known for their passion for the fantasy world -- in a 2021 census, more than 21,000 of 10.5 million Czechs registered as Jedi, the guardians of peace and justice in the Star Wars saga.