A place in history is up for grabs through a competition launched today to pick names for the five neighbourhoods to be built in the Olympic Park.

Your Park, Your Place is calling on the the public to use their imaginations to name the neighbourhoods, whether it be for sporting, geographical or historical reasons.

Following next year’s Summer Games, the Queen Elizabeth Park will accommodate 8,000 new homes, sporting venues including the Olympic stadium, schools, nurseries, health centres and 6.5 kilometres of waterways.

People now have eight weeks to get their suggestions into the Olympic Park Legacy Company to immortalise the five neighbourhoods, which will sit in three different boroughs – Hackney, Newham and Tower Hamlets.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: “Our city has some of the most famous place names of any city in the world, and with Londoners’ help I am sure we can come up with some names that put the park well and truly on the map.”

Entries will be judged by a panel including representatives from the three boroughs, Waltham Forest, the department for communities and local government, the Museum of London Archaeology Service and the OPLC.

They will be judged on popularity, historical referencing and their relation to the area’s diverse communities.

Andrew Altman, the OPLC’s chief executive, said: “The area has a rich history ranging from its role at the forefront of the industrial revolution making confectionery, gunpowder and the first plastics, to Roman roads and other ancient settlements.

“People can use their own experiences of East London life for inspiration, or maybe they have relatives that worked in the area”

The first neighbourhood to be developed after the Olympics, with work starting in 2013, will sit in the north-east of the park, between the velopark and the athletes’ village, with 800 new homes and 3,000 square metres of facilities including a polyclinic and two nurseries.

The other four neighbourhoods, to be developed over the next 20 years, will be in the north-west of the park, next to Hackney Wick; in the Old Ford area; in the south-west between the Stratford City development and the stadium and to the south-east of the stadium, near Pudding Mill station.

Visit legacycompany.co.uk for more information and to submit a suggestion and let us know your ideas through Facebook and Twitter.

And keep reading over the coming weeks as we delve into the history of the neighbourhoods to uncover possible names.