In at least one case, it was spelled as it was (mis)pronounced. Somewhere between 1853 and 1858 a group of settlers from North Carolina pushed to have their small town in Missouri named after the capital of their old state. They spelled it like they said it, and the town was christened Rolla.
Silly girl! Everyone knows that it’s pronounced Wapak! (WAH-pawk) It’s the county seat of Auglaize (AW-glaze) County.
There’s Pompeii, MI, pronounced by the locals as “Pompy-eye”.
The personal name “Jordan” is also sometimes pronounced this way, viz., Carter aide Hamilton Jordan.
This also sounds like an acceptable alternative pronunciation of the name.
Aren’t these just examples of people talking fast?
In some instances, that’s true. In others it’s just the regionalism at work. Anything with -ville in it is going to vary from -vul to -vil to -ful and other variants.
Think of how many ways you’ve heard Nashville, Louisville, Knoxville and such pronounced. Even natives have their preferences.
As for people’s names being off-standard in their pronunciation, there are too many to name, but one I particularly find puzzling is Taliaferro pronounced Tolliver. And Bethshears as Busheers.
Goode is another. Is it Good or Gude?
Southern California–and in particular Orange County–is smothered with “communities” and streets with Spanish names that were obviously contrived by (probably) non-Spanish speakers. This is an aesthetic phenomenon I call “neo-Spanish-colonial nostalgia,” and it’s applied by developers of recent suburban expansion, no doubt in order to infuse a sense of “romantic charm” and “history” to what are essentially cookie-cutter streets and houses that have been suddenly plopped down in the middle of a vast, barren, sage-brush expanse.
The results are blatantly obvious: Names like Calle de las Estrellas, Caminito Grande, and Via buen Corazon, clearly are pulled out of a hat, and bear little or no resemblance to true Spanish, original place and street names, which are usually idiosyncratic.
Many organic Spanish place and street names come from the names of the Spanish land grant ranchos that the Californios owned. Sometimes these were the family names of the owners (Los Feliz), but usually they were named for some kind of topographical characteristic. Hence, we have La Brea (“the tar”) coming from Rancho La Brea, or La Cienega (“the marsh”) from Rancho la Cienega O’ Paso de la Tijera (the “scissors” from the crisscross of the roads).
Compare these real Spanish names to the fabricated ones, like the ultimate stupid psuedo-Spanish name: “Buena Park.”
Another example from here in Connecticut, apparently Biblically-inspired:
[ul][li]Hebron, CT (pronounced “hee-bron”)[/ul][/li](There’s also Lebanon, CT and Bozrah, CT.)
I forgot to mention Havre de Grace, Maryland (“Haver dee grayss”).
And I WILL use it when a pun thread involving place names comes along.
Nobody seems to have mentioned New Orleans yet: aw-LEENZ rather than the French aw-LEE-on.
Someone higher up the thread said St Louis is pronounced the French way. Maybe sometimes, but in the U.S. I think I have heard “St Lewis” much more often (and I lived there, briefly).
People in Louisville Kentucky call their city something like “Luv-VIL” (not so much anglicized as very tightly compressed).
Let’s not forget the obvious – the corruption of the pronunciation of El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula.
Screwed up French pronunciations:
Pierre, SD (from French word for 'stone") is pronounced “PEER.”
Boise, ID (pronounced "Bwah-ZAY in French; it means “Woodsy”) is pronounced “BOY-zee.”
In Central Texas, there are all kinds of messed up Spanish and German prnounciations.
Gruene, TX is prnounced “Green.”
The Guadalupe River is pronounced “GWAH-duh-loop.”
Manchaca is pronounced “MAN-shack.”
Of course, England had some strange geographical pronounciations before anyone knew America existed- I mean, the English think “Featherstonehaugh” is pronounced “Fanshaw” and “Cholmondeley” is pronounced “Chumley.” So, what hope was there once English settlers started trying to pronounce Indian, German or French names i nthe Americas?
“BOY-see” by the locals.
That’s not fake Spanish, though. That’s a legitimate Spanish name that acquired a mangled Anglicized version.
I wonder what people called LA back in the day, though. Was it always Los Ángeles?
[quote=“robby, post:107, topic:560042”]
Another example from here in Connecticut, apparently Biblically-inspired:
[ul][li]Hebron, CT (pronounced “hee-bron”)[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
Oh, well, loads of Biblically-named places in the US are pronounced very differently from how the originals are pronounced by modern people, but I don’t know which is really correct. There’s a Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. I don’t know how it’s pronounced there, but I doubt it’s pronounced Re-ho-VOT, which is how Israelis refer to its namesake. I’ve been to the original Bethesda, which is not a city in Maryland, but a small spring in Jerusalem, where it’s Beit Hisda.
R∂-HOE-b∂th.
(Are the schwas coming through ok?)
Amen.
I’m not sure if I get your point, but the town name of “hialeah” has nothing to do with the name of the game “Jai-Alai.”
I’m surprised that Detroit only got one mention so far. In French, it’s closer to “dai twah”.
Not anymore. Some years back they decided to go to a ‘correct’ pronunciation. So now it’s Bur-bon-AY.
Kind of messes up the rhythm of the name of the local high school: Bradley-Bourbonnais. Or at least to my ears.
On the other hand, out west of here a ways there’s Marseilles. (Mar-SAYLS)
I was watching Crow: City of Angels the other day, in English, and at some point the Crow calls one of the other guys “angelito” - only, he pronounces it with neither the “y” Americans use for Los Angeles nor the aspirated h or harsh J it would carry in Spanish, it was a soft g. The actor’s name is an extremely Hispanic Pérez, but he’s French-Swiss…
Kyla, I strongly doubt anybody used the whole kit and caboodle outside of official papers. The most common name would, indeed, have been Los Ángeles, similar to how nowadays people only say “Tudela de Duero” to distinguish it from the several-provinces-away Tudela (no extras, aka “Tudela de Ebro” or “Tudela de Navarra” but again only to distinguish it from its de Duero sister).
samclem, linky not working right now, but my info comes from Hialeños (sorry, can’t link conversations) and there has been a Jai-Alai in the area since before the town incorporated. As I said, Jai-Alai is both one of a family of games and the place where they are played.