Nobody in Scottsdale will correct you. They’ll just repeat the word back the right way, a little louder, and you’ll hear it. Arizona’s names come from Welsh, Spanish, Nahuatl, Arabic, O’odham, Piipaash, Yuman languages and at least one pair of sisters-in-law, and English spelling was never going to hold all of that. Here are the ones visitors trip on, roughly in the order you’ll meet them, with the stressed syllable in capitals.
Where the site’s lexicon has a pronunciation, we’ve checked it against a source that should know: the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation for Taliesin, the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community’s own language program for O’odham and Piipaash, the National Park Service and the state’s historians for the rest.
The architect
Taliesin: tally-ESS-in. Three syllables, stress in the middle; that’s how the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation spells it out on its own site. Not TALLY-sin, not tally-SEEN. It’s Welsh for “shining brow,” the name of a sixth-century bard, and Wright, whose mother’s family was Welsh, gave it to his Wisconsin home in 1911 because he built it on the brow of a hill, not the top. He brought the name to the desert in 1937. Locals drop the “West” for the one on Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard. The Taliesin West guide has the tours, the Taliesin entry the word, and the desert architecture note the man.
The desert
Gila: HEE-luh. The G is an H, because the name came into English through Spanish, for the Gila River. Same sound in Gila monster (HEE-luh MON-ster), Gila Bend and the Gila River Indian Community. The lizard is slow, venomous, protected and the source of a diabetes drug; the Gila monster entry has all four.
Saguaro: suh-WAR-oh. The G is nearly silent; some people let a little of it through (suh-GWAR-oh), and that’s fine. Nobody says sah-GWAIR-oh twice. The word is a Spanish-era version of an older name; the O’odham call the cactus ha:san. See the saguaro entry and the bloom-to-harvest note.
Cholla: CHOY-uh. Two syllables. The Spanish double L is a Y. It’s the jointed cactus that jumps onto your shin, and the name of the Cholla Trail up Camelback; the Echo Canyon vs. Cholla note picks between them, and the cholla entry explains how not to wear one.
Ocotillo: oh-koh-TEE-yoh. Spanish again, from a Nahuatl word for torch, which is exactly what it looks like in April, when the red tips bloom. Ocotillo entry.
Palo verde: PAH-lo VAIR-day. Spanish for “green stick,” for the green bark. The state tree. Palo verde entry.
Mesquite: mess-KEET. Spanish mezquite, from the Nahuatl mizquitl. The tree, the shade and the grilling wood. Mesquite entry.
Javelina: hah-veh-LEE-nah. The J is an H. From Spanish jabalina, wild boar, though the animal isn’t a pig. Say it with a hard J and you’ve announced your arrival date. Javelina entry; the wildlife field guide has the herd behind your pool fence.
Coyote: ky-OH-tee or KY-ote. Both are correct. Three syllables is more common; two is the old ranch-country way. Coyote entry.
Caliche: kuh-LEE-chee. The cemented layer your shovel hits six inches down. Spanish, from the Latin for lime. Caliche entry.
Haboob: huh-BOOB. The summer dust wall. The word is Arabic, borrowed by Phoenix scientists in 1972, and some Arizonans have never forgiven them. Haboob entry.
Xeriscape: ZEER-uh-scape. Not “zero-scape,” though a yard of gravel tempts it. From the Greek xeros, dry. Xeriscape entry, and the plants field guide for what to plant.
The places
Mogollon: MUGGY-own. The big one, and the shibboleth. Payson says MUGGY-own; the Sharlot Hall Museum renders it “mug-ee-yown.” The name is Spanish, for Juan Ignacio Flores Mogollón, governor of New Mexico from 1712 to 1715, and in Spanish it’s closer to mo-go-YOHN. What nobody local says is mo-GOLL-on. The Rim is where the Valley goes in July; see the Mogollon Rim entry and the day trips note.
Tempe: tem-PEE. Stress on the second syllable, not TEMP-ee. Darrell Duppa suggested the name, adopted in 1879, because the butte above the Salt reminded him of the Vale of Tempe in Greece. Mill Avenue is the place to say it.
Prescott: PRESS-kit. Rhymes with biscuit, not “press-cot.” Named in 1864 for the historian William H. Prescott. The Thumb Butte trail is the easy hike in town.
Tucson: TOO-sahn. The C is silent. From the O’odham Cuk Ṣon, usually translated as the base of the black hill, for the basalt-capped peak west of downtown. The Saguaro National Park guide is the reason to go.
Ajo: AH-ho. Spanish for garlic, possibly chosen because it sounded like the O’odham word for the paint pigment found there.
Canyon de Chelly: canyon duh SHAY. An anglicized Spanish borrowing of the Navajo Tséyi’, roughly “inside the rock.” The Cottonwood Campground guide is where to sleep.
Mazatzal: MAH-zaht-ZAL, or, locally, ma-tuh-ZEL. The range north of Fountain Hills. The origin is uncertain; one theory is Nahuatl for “place of the deer.” The Barnhardt Trail guide climbs into it.
Mesa: MAY-suh. Spanish for table, for the flat-topped landform. Mesa and butte entry.
Tonto: TAHN-toh. The national forest that starts at Scottsdale’s northern edge, named for the Tonto Basin; tonto is Spanish for something like foolish, and nobody agrees why it was pinned on the local Apache. Tonto National Forest entry.
Piestewa: py-ES-tuh-wah. The peak and the freeway, the 51, renamed in 2003 for Lori Piestewa, a Hopi soldier from Tuba City killed in Iraq that March, the first Native American woman known to die in combat in the U.S. military. Locals say “the 51” partly to dodge it; say it anyway. State Route 51 entry, and the Piestewa Peak summit trail.
Jomax: JOE-max. Not Spanish, not joe-MAX. Fitz Durham named the north Scottsdale road around 1950 for his sister Josephine and his wife Maxine. Jomax Road entry.
The peoples
These are the words most worth getting right, because they’re people’s names for themselves. The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community’s language program publishes the rules: in O’odham, the stress falls on the first syllable of the root, the apostrophe is a glottal stop (the catch in “uh-oh”), a short o sounds like the vowel in “all,” and d sounds like the th in “this.” In Piipaash the stress falls on the last syllable of the root.
O’odham: AW-aw-tham, with a catch between the two aw sounds and a soft th. You’ll hear an anglicized OH-oh-dum, too; the closer you get to the first, the better.
Akimel O’odham: AH-kih-mel AW-aw-tham. The River People, one of the two peoples of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community next door. Akimel O’odham and Piipaash entry.
Piipaash: pee-PAHSH. Stress on the second syllable; the Community’s language program gives the example itself, pii-PAASH, not PII-paash. The Piipaash are the Community’s other people, long called Maricopa; at Salt River they’re the Xalychidom Piipaash, the Upriver People.
Tohono O’odham: toe-HO-no AW-aw-tham. The Desert People, whose nation lies south and west of Tucson. Tohono O’odham entry.
Pima: PEE-muh. The old outside name for the Akimel O’odham, which survives on Pima Road, the Pima Freeway and the cotton.
Papago: PAH-puh-go. The old outside name for the Tohono O’odham, kept on Papago Park and nowhere you’d use it for people. Papago entry.
Hohokam: ho-ho-KAHM. The archaeologists’ word for the canal builders whose ditches lie under Scottsdale. It comes from the O’odham huhugam, the ancestors, said roughly HOO-hoo-gahm, which is the word the Community prefers and the one on the Huhugam Ki Museum. Hohokam entry, and the south Scottsdale canals note.
Yavapai: YAV-uh-pie. The people of the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation east of Fountain Hills; the name comes from Mojave words often translated as “people of the sun.” Yavapai entry.
Hualapai: WAH-lah-pie. “People of the tall pines,” from their word for the ponderosa, a nation in northwest Arizona. The Hualapai Mountain Park guide covers the range near Kingman that carries the name.
Kiva: KEE-vuh. A Hopi word for a ceremonial chamber, borrowed for Scottsdale’s City Hall council chamber in 1968, so “at the Kiva” means at a council meeting. The Kiva entry.
Why so many schools, parks and streets here carry these names is its own story; the Native names note tells it.
Around town
Chimichanga: chim-ee-CHANG-guh. Fried burrito; Tucson and Phoenix both claim it. Chimichanga entry.
Charros: CHAR-ohs. Not SHAR-ohs. Spanish for gentleman horseman, the club behind spring training at Scottsdale Stadium. The Charros entry.
Parada del Sol: pah-RAH-dah del SOL. “The Parada” to old-timers, two syllables stressed in the middle. Parada del Sol entry.
Quick answers
How do you pronounce Taliesin? Tally-ESS-in, stress on the middle syllable, as the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation gives it. It’s Welsh for “shining brow.”
How do you pronounce Taliesin West? The same way, tally-ESS-in west, though locals usually just say Taliesin.
How do you pronounce Gila monster? HEE-luh MON-ster. The G in Gila is pronounced like an H.
How do you pronounce saguaro? Suh-WAR-oh, with the G almost silent.
How do you pronounce Mogollon? MUGGY-own, the way Payson and the Rim say it, not mo-GOLL-on.