6 New Hampshire Towns That Are Some of the Hardest to Pronounce in America

According to Reader's Digest, the town of Milan, New Hampshire was named as one of the hardest to pronounce in all of the U.S.A., but really?  We have many, many other town names that are much harder,

Milan, pronounced, MY-lin, not like the Italian city, isn't technically what people from New Hampshire even call it.  We call that area Berlin, pronounced, BURR-lin, not the city in Germany where Hitler liked to hang out.

If you want more of a challenge, try these New Hampshire Town names:

Concord

For the love of everything Holy, if you are a movie or TV maker, it's the Capital of New Hampshire and it's pronounced KAWN-kerd.  NOT KON-KORED.  Concord would rhyme with FAWN-curd.  Get it?  If not, just call me.

Boscawen

Located just north of Concord, New Hampshire, Boscawen is one of those towns where you can't really phonetically sound it out.  Here in New England, we like to ignore a lot of the letters in many towns and you kind of have to do it with this one too.  Boscawen, pronounced, BOSS-ka-win.

Goshen

Just a smidge south of the Lakes Region, we have GO-shen, pronounced the same way you would if you were running a race.  GO! shen.

Lyndeborough

Here's a good example of ignoring a lot of letters.  Actually, that's a good tip for anyone coming to New England.  Just mumble through town names, river names, etc., that you're not sure of.  People will think you're a local.  Anyway, Lyndeborough is pronounced, LINEd-burr-oh.  LINEd would rhyme with FIND.  Lyndeborough is a town about 30-ish minutes West of Manchester in that region of the state that is obscure and no one is really familiar with that part unless you live there.

Moultonborough

Located in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire.  The real estate in this town is ridiculously expensive, but it's not Wolfeboro, calm yourself down.  The "mumble through" tip in the above paragraph applies to Mountonborough.  Pronounced:  MOLE-ten-burr-oh.

Stratham

This is a big one.  When I first moved to the Seacoast all the way from Nashua, New Hampshire, I screwed this one up.  We had to do the weather forecast at the radio station I was at and name three area towns to make the listeners feel like we were talking to them.  So, I picked three.

"It's currently 25 in Portsmouth, 32 in Durham and 27 in Stratham."  

I nailed Portsmouth, pronounced, PORTS-smith, Durham, (duh) but Stratham?  I messed that up and pronounced it exactly the way it looks, "STRATH-um."  Nope.  Big fail.  Stratham is pronounced, STRAT-um.  Rhymes with RAT-um.

Well there you go.  Now you should be able to pronounce any town in New Hampshire, or New England really.  (remember... mumble.)  Your next tutorial will be river and lake names.  I wish you luck in advance with "Piscataqua."