NY1's Jeanine Ramirez wraps up our What's in a Name Brooklyn series with a look at some unusual names around the borough.

It has nothing to do with vinegar. So why is a Brooklyn waterfront neighborhood called Vinegar Hill?

"It was named after the site of the final battle of the Irish Revolution of 1798," said Julia Golia, public history director at the Brooklyn Historical Society. "That's very appropriate because in the early 19th century, it was a neighborhood that was a primary place for Irish people to settle. Often times, it was called Irish Town."

Of course, some neighborhood and street names do sound like what they're named for. Take Vinegar Hill's Water Street. It got its name because it was Brooklyn's early water line. Landfill helped create a new shoreline, expanding the borough's acreage.

There are many streets across Brooklyn named for their physical locations. Ocean Parkway leads to the ocean. Surf Avenue runs parallel to Coney Island's surf. And there are other names for what was found on site, though in the case of Sheepshead Bay, it's not what you might think.

"Sheepshead Bay gets its name from a fish called sheepshead, which no longer swims in these local waters. And its face, its lips were very large, just like a lips on a sheep," said Brooklyn borough historian Ron Schweiger.

Also reflecting nature are names of streets in Prospect Lefferts Gardens.

"You have Maple Street, you have Midwood Street, Hawthorne Street to evoke that kind of sense of being in the country," said Jerome Krase, professor emeritus at Brooklyn College. "In the early 20th century, much of central Brooklyn was really suburban."

At that time, there were also many horse race tracks - tracks in Gravesend, Sheepshead Bay, Brighton Beach - making Brooklyn the racing capital of America. The Brooklyn horse tracks closed down when Governor Charles Hughes prohibited gambling in 1910. Street names, though, reflect that era. William Whitney was a horse breeder. Josh Billings was a jockey.

"A gentleman named Harry Harkness purchased the property of the horse racing track and converted it into an automobile racing track. Harry Harkness," Schweiger siad. "And this is very close to the southern end of where that track was."

Brooklyn's past etched into city streets.