I had always thought that the areas in a city could be named in such a way that the name indicates where the area is. Imagine an area that you have never heard of comes up in a conversation. The other person then has to tell you the specific famous places from that area or its neighboring areas for you to understand where it lies in the city. Some cities have numbered their areas and, I think, that makes visualization easier in a conversation.
If you don't want to use numbers, there is a way to still name the areas in such a way that you can visualize them, for example, using this "designer city" idea. If the city looks like the face of a person, you could name the places as "left forehead" and "right forehead". :) The roads could be named in the same way - "left eyebrow street", "mustache street", "nostril 1 avenue". Although it sounds funny when you name areas using facial features, it is convenient to visualize them. Also, funnier names exist - "chicken dinner road", "error place", "linger longer road", etc. :)