List Of Names In English With Counterintuitive Pronunciations
This is a set of lists of English personal and place names whose pronunciations are counterintuitive to their spelling, because the pronunciation does not correspond to the spelling, or because a better-known namesake has a markedly different pronunciation. They are known as heterophonic names (unlike homonyms, which have different meanings).
Excluded are the numerous spellings which fail to make the pronunciation obvious without actually being at odds with it: for example, the pronunciation /skəˈnɛktədi/ of Schenectady is not immediately obvious, but neither is it counterintuitive.
See Wikipedia:IPA for English for guides to the IPA symbols used, and WP:United States dictionary transcription for a guide to the US dictionary symbols used.
Read more about List Of Names In English With Counterintuitive Pronunciations: Place Names in Britain and Ireland, Place Names in Canada, Place Names in Australia, Place Names in Other English-speaking Countries, Given Names
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“Shea—they call him Scholar Jack—
Went down the list of the dead.
Officers, seamen, gunners, marines,
The crews of the gig and yawl,
The bearded man and the lad in his teens,
Carpenters, coal-passers—all.”
—Joseph I. C. Clarke (1846–1925)
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—Janet Frame (b. 1924)
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—Sarah Louise Delany (b. 1889)
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—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)