The fun part about living someplace other than where you grew up is learning how to pronounce the names of streets and towns in your new area. I remember how my first wife, who was from Australia, pronounced the name of the town in New Jersey I resided in as “Par-SI-pan-y” and thinking it was hilarious because it was pronounced “Par-sip-pany.” But, then, being Australian she pronounced a lot of words the British way. On the other hand, even though I grew up on the East coast I was familiar with southern cities so I was confused when I found out that Houston Street, in New York City, was pronounced “House-ton” rather than “Hue-ston.”
Anyway, when I got here to Texas I was assaulted by all kinds of places that looked like the pronounciation would be straightforward, but they really weren’t. Like, asking people were “Man-chak-a” (Manchaca) street would get you nothing but a blank look. That’s because it’s actually pronounced “Man-chak”.
My favorite, though, is probably Gruene. I tried many ways of saying this, including “Groon” and “Groin-ey.” Turns out it’s “Green.” Because, I guess, the ‘U’ is silent and the ’N’ decided to shuffle a bit to the left.
There is the town of Cele, sort of. It’s a bit of a ghost town, now, but there are still things around it with the Cele name. I have no clue how to pronounce it. I do know that it was named after someone named Lucile. So it could be “Sealy” or “Seal” or pronounced like the first part of “Celeste.” I don’t know.
And God help you if you tell people you’re going to “Burr-Net” and not “Burn-It” because you will get an earful.
I mention this because when I leave work to go home I use Waze to keep track of accidents and cars on the side of the road. Every time I put in that I’m going home, the voice tells me to take 130 Manor. And I laugh and wonder how the voice gets it so wrong. And I laugh. And then I realized that I had lived here for so long that the way it’s pronounced locally has become normal to me. You see, she says “Manner,” as in “Lord of the Manor.” It’s actually pronounced “May-ner,” which blew my mind when I first got here. But now it’s normal. Go figure.
One day I’ll get up to the Muenster House. That’s in Waxahachie, Texas. Asking directions is out of the question and my GPS might just explode trying to say it.
Garden of Entropy 
I’ve gone many times back east to visit my sister in Boston. There’s Haverhill, Peabody, Worcester… ALL SORTS OF pronunciations for me to screw up.
Haverhill is one syllable: havril. it isn’t haver hill.
Peabody is 3 syllables: pee-bah-dee.
Worcester, depending on which part of the state you’re from, and how long ago you dropped your “r”s is “woo stah” or “woo-ster” never, ever wor-chester.
In Denver, the land of no accents but plenty of Spanish origin words: Vasquez. No one freaks out if you pronounce the u, but the news people (and I) pronounce it vas-kez. Somehow, people forget that Quebec is French, and pronounce it kwa-beck instead of cue-bek.
In Oregon there are lots of native words to mangle, and several people’s names. there’s an itty-bitty town about 50 miles from me due west called Philomath. I called it fy-lo-math, it’s really flo-math. The Willamette River doesn’t have another “i” in it. Wil-lam-ett. (but there’s a town in Colorado named Will-a-mette.)
My phone’s gps voice is quite amusing also. “Turn left onto Knox BUTT Road”, ahahahha she said butt. (B’yoot)
I would 0nly know Worcester because I’ve been corrected so many times on the sauce name. Half the fun of driving is listening to the GPS mangle names.
Having spent most of my life in Texas, it is always a hoot to hear how people pronounce names we are so familiar with. Reminds me of the old joke of a couple traveling through Mexia, and they weren’t certain how to pronounce it. So they stopped to ask the correct pronunciation where they were. She slowly but distinctly said, “Dairy Queen”. By the way, Mexia is pronounced Ma hay ya.
I’ve spent a fair bit of time in Texas before I moved here, but always seemed to end up near places that didn’t need linguistic gymnastics. Like, Austin, Dallas, Denton, Bangs, etc.