This thesis examines the numerous characteristics assigned to Midtown, focusing on place-names as cultural representations of Midtown’s identity since the post-Civil War era. Exploring the images, symbols, and language employed by neighborhood stakeholders who deployed various place-names to describe the area this thesis illustrates how perceptions of place became implicated in material struggles over space and explains the role of marginalized social groups in shaping the pattern and pace of urban development in Atlanta in the context of social change and urbanization in the New South.