21-03-2025
How to pronounce Richmond's trickiest names like a local
If you're newish to town and trying to find that just-opened Amazon returns store on Quioccasin in Henrico, Parham Road is likely your best bet to get there.
Why it matters: Richmonders have their own way of speaking, and if you're one of the nearly 50,000 people who just moved here, you've likely been saying most of those words wrong.
The big picture: Richmond is an old(ish) city that kept or incorporated some of the Powhatan tribe's Algonquin language into its place names as it grew.
As a result, Richmonders — with our unique southern-but-not twang and our refusal to change — have likely created our own Richmond-proper pronunciations.
Zoom in: Here's the Richmond-correct way to say some of our weirdest proper nouns.
Henrico — Hen-rye-co, never Hen-reek-o.
Henricus — Hen-rye-cuss, and yes it's in Chesterfield.
Powhite — If you think there's no way locals would pronounce the toll road that runs through Chesterfield, which long ago was thought to be the poor man's version of Henrico, to sound like a mumbled "poor white" … incorrect!
It's Po-white. Not Pow-white. Don't let officials tell you otherwise.
Jahnke — Your GPS is wrong. It's Jank, not Jank-ee.
Huguenot — We're not sure why folks keep mispronouncing this very common proper noun, but it's Hugh-guh-knot.
Powhatan — Pow-a-tan, not Poe-hat-en.
Matoaca — Ma-toe-a-ka, pronounced like the correct spelling of the proper noun from which it's derived, Matoaka, better known as Pocahontas.
Parham — Pair-um. Every other way is just incorrect.
Chamberlayne — Chamber-lin, never Chamber-lane.
Semmes — Simms, not seems.
Foushee — It's Foo-shay, not Fooshy.
Quioccasin — TBH, Richmonders will allow a pass on this one because most of us aren't sure, but we at Axios Richmond say it, Kwee-acca-sin, rhyming it with moccasin.
Forest Hill — This is a tricky one. It's pronounced like it sounds, Forest Hill, emphasis on the singular hill.
Other noteworthy, Richmond-specific names:
The bottom line: The way Richmonders say these words might be technically "wrong," but in RVA, they're just right.
