These 10 Places In Michigan Are Constantly Mispronounced

Whether you're a local or not, if you look at a map of Michigan there are plenty of city names that may make you double-take. Some town names like Bath, Coldwater, and Hell are pronounced exactly like the thing in your bathroom, the water in said thing, or the dreaded place 6 feet under. Meanwhile, some towns like Gaylord are deceptively difficult (more on Gaylord later).

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Considering Michigan has over 1000 named locations across the state there are plenty of names to mispronounce. But of all those names, there are a select few you hear misspoke more than any of them.

You can either use this list as a guide to fix previous mistakes or as a little game to expose your friends for their wrongdoings.

Michigan Name Origins

If you've looked at a map of the state, you see a pretty healthy variety of names that you can read without question situated next to words that you have to stare at for a minute. A great example of this can be found in the Upper Peninsula, where Iron Mountain neighbors Escanaba. 

This is because many of the names in the state derive from Algonquin languages like Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi. For example, the name "Michigan" comes from the Ojibwe word "mishigamaw", which means "large water". Many of the names people struggle with stem from words deriving from these languages.

Here are 10 places everyone struggles to say. Let me know others you hear mispronounced.