The aim is to explore the relationship between memory, history and society, by studying the role of the proper names of buildings or urban spaces, which can also be referred to as "urban place names", as a support for communicational memory. The study focuses on urban place names explicitly given as such, and referring to an emperor or a member of the imperial family. Its first results show the possibility of a systematic study of urban place names, and of the role played by imperial eponymy. The continuity in this field between epigraphic and literary sources is striking. The examples collected confirm the importance of baths as a support for communicational memory, and as « places of memory » for the relations between city and emperor. Moreover, they highlight the performative role of the inscriptions.