Place names (pronunciation and popular names)

Place names in London are mostly very old and have changed over time. Their pronunciation often does not correspond to what we would expect from the spelling. For example, some syllables are completely lost, or for some unknown reason "s" is pronounced like "g". Vocabulary is often "swallowed", for example the common ending "ham" is pronounced more like " uM". Here I would bring the pronunciations of some of the most common names as sound samples so that you can say these "like a real Londoner" when you go there. Of course, keep in mind that many different dialects are spoken in London, and what is presented here is not the only possible way of pronouncing these names.


Aldgate
Aldwych
Barbican
Borough
Borough Market
Buckingham Palace
Chancery Lane
Charing Cross
Clapham
Covent Garden
Dalston
Embankment Station
Euston
Farringdon
Fulham
Gloucester Road
Greenwich
Harrods
Heathrow
Holborn
King's Cross St Pancras
Knightsbridge
Lancaster Gate
Leicester Square
Lewisham
Mall
Marylebone
Paddington
Piccadilly Circus
Shepherd's Bush
South Kensington
Southwark
Spitalfields Market
St Paul's
Thames
The Tube (Underground)
Trafalgar Square
Tottenham Court Road
Tower Bridge
Vauxhall
Waterloo

Folk names

Nickname Real name Former name
Big Ben Elizabeth Tower The Clock Tower
Boris Bikes Santander Cycles Barclays Cycle Hire
Boris Bus New Routemaster New Bus for London
The Can of Ham 60-70 St Mary Axe
The Cheesegrater The Leadenhall Building
The Dangleway, the cable car IFS Cloud Cable Car Emirates Air Line
The Dome The O2 Millennium Dome
The Drain Waterloo and City Line Waterloo and City Railway
The Glass Testicle ? ? ? City Hall
Millennium Wheel London Eye British Airways London Eye
Petticoat Lane Middlesex Street Petticoat Lane
The Tangled Earphones, The Squiggle, The Eyescore, Mittal Orbit, The Orbit Tower The ArcelorMittal Orbit
The Walkie-Talkie 20 Fenchurch Street
The Wobbly Bridge London Millennium Footbridge
The Trembling Lady Albert Bridge