As an Oklahoma native I’ve been hearing people butcher town names all my life. I give most of them a pass because some of those indian names can be tough to pronounce. I’m from a town called Shattuck. (sounds like shadduck, I hear people say ShatOOk.
I know that some people in San Antonio hate it when you say San Antone.
Reminds me of that comedian who said he liked Hawaii, but it got to the point where he automatically tried to read everything as a Hawaiian word. (acting like he’s talking on the phone) “Yeah, I’m standing next to the Oooo ha Oooollll store. Oh wait, I’m sorry, it’s the U-Haul store!”
Captain Cook was high on quaaludes when he found the islands. He sailed up, leaned over the railing, and was like, ‘Oh, WAhoo!’
It’s hard to use text to say ‘Oh, WOW!’ like a person high on 'ludes would.
I know. There’s a Doper whose username I can’t help but read as ‘Tee-ah-cah-cay’. (But that’s actually Pratchett-derived. 
)
Huh? For people who leave out “the” when referring to highways, “Interstate 405” (or “I-405”) is as much a proper noun as “Madison Avenue”.
After reading Tolkien, I want to pronounce the verb meaning “to jubilantly give thanks” as “Kell-uh-BRAH-tay”.
‘Take the freeway south.’
‘Which freeway?’
‘The 405 [freeway].’
In this case, 405 is not being used as a proper noun. It’s being used as a modifier to ‘freeway’; i.e., just the number of the freeway. Interstate 405 or I-405 would be a proper noun, so you would not use ‘the’.
‘Take the avenue south.’
‘Which avenue?’
‘The Madison Avenue.’
Here, you’re just saying a generic avenue. Madison Avenue is a proper name; so, like I-405, you would not use ‘the’.
My favorite shibboleths to separate the non-locals are Bala Cynwyd and Schyulkill (for pronunciation) and the Blue Route (for history.) 20+ year Delaware Valley transplant here, so I feel entitled to consider myself semi-local at least.
Some tips for visitors to Virginia:
“Norfolk” does not sound like the word “folk,” it sounds like the word “fuck.” Nor-fuck, or naw-fuck, if you want to be super authentic.
“Botetourt” is pronounced bot-ih-tot.
I went to college in SLO in the early 80s, and lived in the town from '83 to '89. Everybody called it “SLO” or “SLO-town.”
I sometimes called it “San Luis Abysmal,” but I got over that. 
I really do love the town.
Others:
I know it’s just me and I’m a minority on this, but stop calling San Francisco “The City”! It’s pretentious and annoying.
Also, all the newscasters up here call the town of San Pablo “San PAB-lo” (with the “pab” rhyming with “jab.”) Maybe it’s right, I dunno, but I’d think it would be pronounced like the name (“POB-lo”) rather than like “pablum.”
I love knowing stuff like this, but I have a couple of problems here.
Buenaventura means good luck or good fortune. A good view would be buena vista, no? I can’t find any reference to this name anywhere, and Richard Henry Dana also told the story of it being named after St. Bonaventure. Where are you finding a different origin story?
I lived in L.A. during the 1970s, although I didn’t drive. (Bastards wouldn’t license me until I turned 16, and then I used the license to drive the hell away from there.) I don’t remember I-405 being called anything but the San Diego Freeway. U.S. 101 is the Ventura Freeway, but I don’t remember anything being called the Ventura Highway or the Ventura Bypass.
THIS is the city: Los Angeles, California.
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I said the same thing upthread. It’s more or less one crappy rag of a paper that continues this.
I like to ask “which City- LA, San Jose, Sacramento?”