There is something similar with the village of Bourbonnais, IL (well known in the Chicagoland area for being the cite of the Bears training camp from 2002-2019.) The old, old-timers might still pronounce it as " bər-BOH-nis", but the pronunciation was officially changed to “ber-buh-NAY” in 1976. I don’t know how many pronounce it as the former still, but growing up in the 80s, I was familiar with the old pronunciation.
What is that? Never heard Puyallup said that way and I grew up in that area. It’s always been pronounced “pew-allup”. An old wives tales says that when the first white settlers came to the area, the chief of the local Indian tribe was named Allup. Chief Allup had a problem, he was always gassy and not in a nice way. A map maker came through the area and heard everyone saying pew, Allup, he thought that was the name of the town. There was also radio commercials from back in the 70’s that made fun of the name. The commercials were for Toyota of Puyallup, the announcer pronounced the name of the town in a number of humorous ways but never the correct way. While playing Puyallup High School in a football game, the stadium announcer used all the mispronounced names instead of the correct pronunciation. Didn’t help our case, we lost the game 63-6.
Well, as they say, “When in Rome…”
MN here. I learned to emphasize the O in Concord the town and Concorde the jet. I pronounce conquered differently. But a person has to listen closely to hear the difference and there does seem to be a lack of that these days.
Another one from Ohio is Mantua: MAN-away.
Also in Northeast Ohio, while the locals won’t look at you too funny if you fully enunciate Mentor, they elide it as MENner.
This is, incidentally, identical to the traditional English pronunciation of the name of the French city (which was under English rule for centuries).
As an Englishman, I’d say Smithick. However, I believe the Irish pronunciation is Smidick.
The OP asked for “only locals” get the pronunciation correct. I can’t avoid the feeling that locals may have a say on how the name of a city is pronounced today because they live there, but correct it is not.
Texas is a good example. Everybody pronounces it Teks-Ass, but the correct pronounciation is Teh-Khass. It means “roof shingles”, btw. and is indeed archaic Spanish, as you see by the sound “kh” written with “x”, something that Mexico has kept.
Names no foreigner pronounces correctly? Lots. Off the top of my hat, in Spain: Jerez de la Frontera, Zaragoza. In Germany: Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Kurfürstendamm, Garmisch-Partenkirchen. In the UK: Edinburgh and any Welsh town with more than two syllables. In Finnland: Saariselkä.
The YouTube channel Lost in the Pond is going through each state in alphabetical order, trying to guess the pronunciation of these sorts of places, submitted to him by his viewers.
Lawrence says it shows that it’s not just the UK with hard to pronounce names for outsiders.