There’s a street in an area of Montreal called Thimens. It’s pronounced “Timmins.” It’s a weird pronunciation, not quite French and not quite English. In a similar French/English mashup pronunciation vein, we have an area called St-Leonard (saint lee-uh-nard) and a subway station called Square Victoria (skwar, rhymes with “car.”)
Are you sure about all those. I mean, I’m practically next door I think you have Minneapolis, St Paul, Rochester and, um Fargo, yeah, Fargo. Fargo’s in MN, right?* The rest of the cities sound made up. What’s left, is it farmland? I honestly don’t know what you guys do over there.
*Yes, I know Fargo isn’t in MN, but I just figured it out recently, that movie didn’t explain it very well. Ohhh, Brainerd, forgot about that one, and I can also come up with Mankato.
Yeah, the “R” came into favor along about the mid-70s. Prior to that, it was always Shalotte.
Nothing could be finah than to be in Edina in the moooorrrning…
I always have been calling it Mahtomedi Gandhi.
“You must be from Cudahy.”
Haven’t thought of the Couch Potatoes in a long time…
It has taken a number of years for my wife – an Ohio transplant – and I to come to terms with the fact that Lancaster (LAAAAN-cast-er), California is not pronounced the same as Lancaster (LAINK-is-ter), Ohio (or a number of other states back on that side of the country).
That was fun. I took a little mental road trip.
My Midwest Years
Sault Ste Marie, MI (SOO san ma-REE)
Saline, MI (suh-LEEN)
New Prague, MN (noo PRAY-gue)
Shakopee, MN (SHOCK-oh-pee)
Marseilles, IL (mar-SALES)
San Jose, IL (san JOE’S)
Kearney, NE (CAR-nee)
Beatrice, NE (bee-AAAH-tris)
Des Plaines, Il (DEZ planes)
Novi, MI (NO-vie)
Hamtramck, MI (ham-TRAM-ick)
My Colorado Years
Tooele, UT (too-WILL-eh)
Ouray, CO (yer-AY)
Saguache, CO (suh-WATCH)
Niwot, CO (NY-waht)
Florida, CO (fluh-REE-da)
Huerfano, CO (WAR-fuh-no)
When my brother worked as a phone directory assistant, he had callers who may or may not have been natives, but they sure came up with some doozies for So Cal cities:
Van New Eez (Van Nuys)
Slime-Mar (Sylmar)
Sarah Toss (Cerritos)
Bree (Brea)
Placenta (Placentia)
And my all-time favorite, drum roll…
Granola Hills
(Granada Hills!)
I lived in Van Nuys for several years, and yeah, no one out of the So Cal area could ever seem to figure that one out without help.
Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention Tooele Utah.
Another interesting Utah town is Spanish Fork, which you wouldn’t think would have more than one pronunciation. But the locals pronounce it “Spanish FARK”
Utah also has a lot of towns named after Book of Mormon places and characters. Outsiders can usually properly guess the correct pronunciation, but it might not be obvious that Manti, home of the Mormon Miracle Pageant, is pronounced “Man-Tie”
Kamiah 
As well as (in the area):
Kooskia
Wawawai
Weippe
Coeur d’Alene
Pend Oreille
Lapwai
Moscow (not pronounced like the one in Russia)
This one really through me. There is a “Calais” in Maine - right on the border with Canada (you know “half french speaking” Canada ?). So it seemed obvious it would be pronounced like the French city: “Cal - lay”, but no…rhymes with palace.
(made me wonder if this was very deliberate - like kind of a F*ck You to Canada: “see, this is America ! We don’t speak no french here !”)
Visiting Australia, it took a while to “accept” that Cairns is pronounced “can”.