Kentwood took its name from a school district

For most of its life, the land that is now Kentwood was called Paris. Paris Township was organized in 1839, a stretch of farms southeast of Grand Rapids named, like a lot of frontier townships, after somewhere grander. It stayed a quiet township for well over a century.

By the 1960s, quiet wasn’t enough to keep it safe. Grand Rapids and Wyoming were both annexing land off its edges, taking the choice parcels. The township’s leaders decided the only way to stop the bleeding was to become a city — and it took three tries before voters finally approved incorporation in 1967.

Then came the question of what to call the new place. “Paris” was out: there was already a Paris up in the middle of the state, and two would only cause confusion. Someone floated “Plaster Creek,” after the largest stream winding through the area. In the end the first mayor, Peter Lamberts, reached for the one name everyone in those neighborhoods already shared and trusted — Kentwood, after the Kentwood Public Schools, the biggest district around. The city borrowed its identity from its own schoolhouses.

It’s a quietly telling choice. Plenty of Michigan towns are named for a founder, a railroad man, or a river. Kentwood is named for the institution that, by 1967, actually held the place together — the schools the new residents drove their kids to every morning. The old name didn’t vanish completely; East Paris Avenue still runs through the city, a street sign carrying the name of a township that talked itself into becoming something new just in time.