Lehi City Council members in the city about 50 km south of Salt Lake City voted unanimously last month to change the name to Morning Vista Road.

Minutes from the meeting show that Xactware Solutions Inc, which provides software for the insurance industry, asked for the name change so that the road would fit with its “international corporate image”.

“Morning glory” is the name of a flower and part of the title of a popular 1990s song from British rock band Oasis. But the term is sometimes used to describe male arousal.

Councilman Johnny Revill, who moved to approve the resolution at the December 11 meeting, told the Salt Lake Tribune that he didn’t know about the term’s slang meaning previously but was happy to appease Xactware officials.

“That name has a negative meaning for some reason,” Revill said. “When you use the word, there is a different meaning that can be taken from that.”

Councillor Mark Johnson told the Daily Herald that he only knows of the noxious weed called Morning Glory that is difficult to control, but he also voted in favour of the resolution. Johnson said Lehi doesn’t like to change street names, but it does in some cases to “honour people or organisations.”

The street name was a red flag for Xactware officials when they began considering moving their company’s headquarters from Orem to Lehi’s Traverse Mountain, said Jonathan Gardner, commercial venture project director for the planned community.

The company was worried that the sexual connotation of morning glory would become too prominent in the minds of prospective clients, Gardner said.

In the popular 1960s TV show Bewitched, the family lived at 1164 Morning Glory Circle.

Morning Glory is also the name of a small community near El Paso, Texas.

Xactware went “a little overboard”, in requesting the street name change, said Lehi resident Emily Scanlon. She said she has never thought of the sexual connotation in her four years driving past the road.

Lehi, with a population of about 48,000 people, is named after a prophet in the Book of Mormon.

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