Why this street bears a royal-sounding name is not certain.
According to Culture Trip, in 1794 the Common Council, keen to drop street names linked to British royalty, renamed an older Prince Street near City Hall Park as Rose Street; at the same time today’s Prince Street, a road on Nicholas Bayard’s farm, got its name. Forgotten New York notes that guidebooks call it a leftover from British rule, but its author is unsure.