One of the visible, external signs of the change in political power in Slovenia, in 1945, was the renaming of geographical places and, especially, streets and public institutions. Before the Second World War, a large number of these were named after saints, religious orders, churches and other names of Christian origin. Some places carried German names and some streets the names of prominent personalities. The Communists, who were intolerant of any reminders of the past, zealously engaged in replacing the existing names with ideologically more suitable ones soon after coming in power.