Around the world, there are several places called Soho, getting their names from an acronym/portmanteau-ish composite of local streets or neighbouring areas. But not the original Soho in London. In fact, London’s place names are an etymological hotchpotch: landmarks present and long gone; 1000-year-old vanity projects; and Cockfosters.

This is a companion piece to the 99% Invisible episode ‘The Soho Effect’: http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-soho-effect.

There’s more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/soho. Say ‘soHO!’ at twitter.com/allusionistshow and facebook.com/allusionistshow.

The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia.fm for PRX.org.