because they would have no people like us to satrt talkin about it and makin it popular .

Same reason people add an "R" to Washington and pronounce it "Warshington"

lol same as why is San Jose spelt like that when its pronouced Hozay or somthing like that

"Looey" is the French pronunciation. I don't think it's the most common way to say it. Most people say "Loo-iss."

Everyone I know in Missouri pronounces it as LOO-is. However, since it was originally named for Louis IX, of France, Loo-ee makes sense.

The name St. Louis from the French, where "Louis" is pronounced "Looey". The same applies to "Louisville" in Kentucky.

Actually, the only people who pronounce it "St. Looey" are people who don't live here. That's how we know who the tourists are right away....the way they pronounce things. We have a lot of streets, neighborhoods, etc. that have been taken from foreign words, but we have our own way we pronounce them (I think that's true for most any city....colloquialisms). People born and raised (I wasn't born here, but have lived in St. Louis since I was 3) in St. Louis do NOT say "St. Looey."

yeah i'm a native and i say louis.

The squabble over St. Louis's pronunciation is just like that of the pronunciation of the state of Illinois, which is, to my understanding, a silent 's'. It is not so much pronounced that way for perfection's sake but because that's just the way the sociological-cookies crumbled! I think there's really no right or wrong way to pronounce them, just the typical way and atypical way. This pronunciation misunderstanding is really just the result of the "Americanizing" of our ancestors' languages. Accents, stressing of syllables and other unique characteristics of many words and/or titles deriving from international languages have been dropped, altered or even forgotten. In fact, some of our hard-workin' folks who came through Ellis Island had to use these variations of language with their names so they would not be as easily labeled as a foreigner; for example, I recall having seen the surname 'Jacques' pronounced as 'Jakes'. I actually had a social studies teacher in the 7th grade that had a "venting" session (she had lots of those) to the class of how she felt about people using 'usopian' versions of foreign names. She went as far as to say it was giving up and turning their backs on their heritage. (Did I mention she was a huge oppressing b!tch?) Whatever the reason is for the differences in the way these words are pronounced, is not as important as the fact that the people who represent that area, or have that strong French last name have been accustomed to a culture that embraces their labels as something celebrated and almost... personalized... which is great. After all, what are we if not our names? Our names essentially ARE us. I like the comment above that says you can always tell the tourists because they call it 'St. Looey'. I mean, I'm no Anita Blake and hey, I would be one of them! Because in my opinion- which lay outside the world of fact- I think it should be pronounced as the old masters of our modern languages originally planned. Don't you?

LOL. It is pronounced Saint-Lou·is Here you can listen to the pronunciation. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/st.%20louis

In the song Route 66 It says "Well it goes through St. Louie down to Missouri"

It's just because of how it was passed down to us and how WE think it should sound and roll off the tongue. I personally think we should strive to pronounce our words and names correctly and how they were originally intended. Would you laugh at someone who said they like to dance 'ball-et' instead of 'ball-e'. Yet, British people say a 'fish fill-et' instead of 'fish fill-e' (makes me laugh every time). So, I think mispronouncing words and names makes anyone sound dumb to the rest of the world.