A Cheat Sheet for Pronouncing Stuff Correctly in San Diego

Like any major American city, San Diego is a mosaic of languages. In our case mostly English, Spanish and Kumeyaay, but dozens of other languages have also left their fingerprints. Add on top of the linguistic quirks that inevitably develop over time, and you end up with a handful of challenging and counter-intuitive to pronounce streets, neighborhoods, and towns.

But it could be worse, thankfully the French didn’t name much here. Sorry St. Louis.

The following are commonly mispronounced things in San Diego to avoid saying in order to not sound like a tourist. But also, what’s wrong with sounding like a tourist? San Diegans will happily welcome you either way!

Anyway, starting from (arguably) the easiest...

Common abbreviations:

Ocean Beach = OB

Ocean Beach is an awesome beach neighborhood that marches to the beat of it’s own drum (literally, there are sometimes drum circles). Laidback, funky, hippy vibes. One of my favorite places to get in the water, or hangout on Newport Ave.

Pacific Beach = PB

Pacific Beach has an excellent boardwalk and a thriving nightlife that I’m too old for now. Great for any age during the day, great for nightlife if you’re over 21 but under 30...

Tijuana = TJ

Our sister city to the south! A lot of people say it’s the busiest border crossing in the world. Which is not true. But it’s the busiest in the Western Hemisphere and fourth busiest on earth, so nothing to stick your nose up at. It’s also where I go to see my dentist, get my car detailed, and practice my Spanish.

Any Numbered Highway

When discussing highways we don’t say “interstate.” Instead of Interstate 5, or even I5, we say “the 5.” The 8, the 15, etc. This is a California thing in general. You may have seen the SNL sketch that uses this with enthusiasm.

Now, pronunciations:

La Jolla = Luh hoy - yuh. “Hoy” rhyming with toy, “yah” rhyming with duh. Duh, because now it’s so easy to pronounce!

La Jolla is a beautiful neighborhood on the northern edge of the city of San Diego. (They might secede and become their own city though…). It’s called The Jewel of San Diego, since it means the jewel in Spanish. Though in Spanish it’s spelled joya, if we’re splitting hairs here. There’s actually an interesting theory that it has nothing to do with jewels, and it stems from the Kumeyaay word for holes, since there are many natural caves there. I may do a deeper dive on this soon!

Upas = You - puss

Puss rhyming with “fuss.” Upas is a street on the northern edge of our massive, beautiful Balboa Park. Though it you’re visiting, the street you’ll want to walk and orbit is El Prado, that’s where the most jaw dropping scenery of Balboa can be found.

El Cajon = El kah - hone

El Cajon Boulevard has grown with cool breweries, bars and restaurants in recent years. And the city of El Cajon stands in east San Diego county with over 100,000 residents! El Cajon means “the box” in Spanish, because the city was boxed in by hills.

Jamul = Ha - mool

City in East San Diego, Jamul means “sweet water” in the indigenous Kumeyaay language.

Otay = Oh - tie

Otay Mesa is a neighborhood that runs right along the Mexican border, and it’s name is a combination of Kumeyaay and Spanish. There’s debate over this, but “otay” likely means something to the effect of big mountain. In Spanish “mesa” means table in general but geologically describes a flat hill. There are many “mesa” neighborhoods in San Diego, such as Serra Mesa and Clairemont Mesa.

Jamacha = Ham - uh - shaw

Used in a few different ways in San Diego, though probably most often for Jamacha Road. Jamacha means “wild gourd” in the indigenous Kumeyaay language, named after what was growing there.

Chalcedony = Cal - sed - oh - knee

I’m as confused as you are. It’s named after a rock, and that’s how the rock is pronounced. This is a street in Pacific Beach, let’s both just hope it doesn’t come up in conversation.

Cowles Mountain = Coals Mountain

There’s some debate on this one. I personally called it “Cow-wuls” mountain in a video online, because that seems intuitive and that’s how I’d always heard it said. Some folks pointed out it’s pronounced “Coals" mountain, since it’s named after a family and that’s how they pronounced it. Interestingly, Instagram seemed to think it was more Coals, and TikTok more thought it was Cow-wuls.

Having learned all that, I’ll probably start saying Coals going forward. No promises. But it brings up an interesting phenomenon: if people mispronounce something for enough generations, does that change the “correct” pronunciation? For example:

Kearny Mesa = Ker - knee may - suh

However, we really should be saying Car - knee, since that’s how the man who it was named after pronounced his own name. But when enough people mispronounce something for enough time, it becomes the correct pronunciation. Language is weird.

I guess we mispronounce our own city too. Don’t sweat it too much, just have fun here in San Diego!