This Illinois Town Was Named One Of The Most Difficult To Pronounce In America

Town names for sure get interesting.

No matter what state you live in, you come across at least one town that you can only pronounce if you've lived there your whole life.

So many states have town names that come from Native American terms (looking at you, Wisconsin) or different languages that kind of got their own unique American twist on them.

Reader's Digest looked at the most difficult towns to pronounce in every state and, while some are way worse, I never would've guessed how to say Illinois' without sounding tongue-tied.

Illinois' Most Difficult Town To Pronounce

Some of America's most challenging town names to pronounce come from the names of their founders and that's the case for Illinois, according to Reader's Digest. The town was named for it's founder, Benjamin L. Dorsey. He is the one who acquired the land that the land was built on and he just kind of smushed his first, middle, and last name together to name the town so he landed on...

Benld.

It's pronounced 'Ben-Eld'. It could be worse.

It's in southwest Illinois, considered to be in the St. Louis Metro area. The population was 1,464 in the 2020 census. According to the Mythic Mississippi Project, Benld used to be a coal town and most of the population was Italian in the 1950's. In fact, Al Capone used Benld to move liquor along Route 66, hiding a distillery under the fake "No. 5 Mine".

There's still a lot of history to be found in Benld, just make sure you say it correctly.