Geneva is Switzerland's second-largest city (after Zurich) and is located in the southwestern corner of the country which juts into France (and, historically, the Duchy of Savoy). Despite being hampered by its physical isolation and the lack of easily available resources, it became a thriving commercial city, known as a centre of finance and watchmaking. It is the seat of several international agencies, such as the Red Cross, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research), but only the first pre-dates the naming of Geneva Gardens in 1925. The League of Nations was founded in 1920 to maintain world peace and its successor, the United Nations, has many of its agencies based in the city.
As with Lucerne Parade, the name Geneva Gardens was probably chosen as part of the developer's marketing ploy to evoke beautiful surroundings, clean air and healthy living. This is confirmed by an advertisement placed in The Belfast Telegraph, 15/02/1927, which encouraged readers to "make your home in lovely Laganvale". It featured a half-timbered house with tall chimneys, probably a stylised depiction of a "Swiss cottage", on the bank of a stretch of water. The advert boasted of the "broad highways, pleasant boulevards, spacious sports grounds and picturesque scenery" in Laganvale.
Like Lucerne, Geneva is surrounded by mountains and is located on a large lake to which it gives its name (although called Le Lac Léman in French). The city was prominent as a centre of culture during the Enlightenment (18th century). The writer and philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born there. Voltaire sought sanctuary there. Later the polymath John Ruskin (1819-1900) was a frequent visitor to Geneva, where he sketched and painted. Some of his notable works show buildings of the city in their Alpine context. It became a centre of Alpine tourism in the mid-19th century, attracting mountain walkers and, later, rock-climbers. La Grande Varappe, a steep-sided gorge on Mont Salève, was the birthplace of rock-climbing as a sport (which is called la varappe in French, after the location).
"Read letter, dated 15th inst., from the Lagan Vale Estate Brick & Terra Cotta Works, Ltd., renewing their application for the approval of proposed names of new streets on their property situate off Stranmillis Road. The Committee having re-considered the matter, it was resolved – That the names submitted be approved, viz., Sharman Road, Lucerne Parade, Prince Edward Park, Geneva Gardens, and Penge Gardens". (16th June 1925).