>>38714226I remember my friends and I pronounced Lt. Surge as "L. T. Surge." I knew from either the anime or seeing it written in full somewhere that it was an abbreviation for "lieutenant," but as a kid I could never remember either that word or how to pronounce it off the top of my head.
Everyone I knew also said Togetic as "to-GET-ic," which looking back is pretty weird since we knew how Togepi was pronounced. We were thinking it was like magnetic or pathetic, I guess. Similar thing with Kangaskhan; I didn't get the pun and so for a while I think I said it more like kang-AS-khan.
I don't remember butchering too many names because I think the Pokémon handbook may have had the pronunciations and the anime clued me into the town names. Think I read "Silph" as "sliff" though, because I just straight didn't get the word at all and I don't think it was ever said on the show. I imagine that without the anime etc. I would've pronounced a lot more wrong than I did.