why the spelling and pronunciation of Italian cities are converted for English speaking people?

In at least some cases the answer has to due with history and changing pronunciation. The English name remained the same while the Italian evolved. Florence is close to the medieval name for Firenze, and Genoa is the older pronunciation of Genova. How about Nizza becoming Nice only about 150 years ago. I have an Italian friend who goes apoplectic when he hears Renaissance or Parmesan instead of the Italian names.

And not only for the English speaking part of the world. Have a look how these cities are called in, for example, German and French.

Did you see this long discussion on using the English place names on this forum, suggesting it is annoying and "pretentious" to do otherwise? ( Not everyone agrees).

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/general-europe/just-curious-place-names#top

why not pronounce the name of a city as the people who live there do?

No, I did not see that Lola

buying a train ticket from Florence to Venice? ...good luck with that spelling

Jim, the aforementioned recent thread ( https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/general-europe/just-curious-place-names ) has just about done this to death.
The technical term is "exonym", the name used for a place used by people outside that place.
If you are visiting a place, you need to know the "real" name of a place, and "exonyms" are gradually going out of favour as more and more people travel. But as long as schools (and school atlases) teach that "Rome" is the capital of "Italy" we will have the problem.

I think it will be a long time before Magyarország, Hrvatska and Shqipëri for example are listed in English-language guidebooks. But things are improving. When I first went to France I had to remember that at Gare du Nord I had to look for a train to Londres.

The current film "Dunkirk" is, in France, called by the "real" name of the town "Dunkerque", but as it has gone down in History as Dunkirk it is difficult to change. But, if coming from Belgium, you have to remember that the road signs use the original Flemish name, "Duinkerke".

You mean Mailand, Rom, Venedig, Florenz. On German language maps you would see Dünkirchen

Jim, makes me think of trip for mardi gras when i was a senior on college.... my friend's mom gave us Holiday inn points to use.... probably in an attempt to keep us safely out in a suburb named "Metairie ". We were clueless how the locals would actually pronounce that, so my friend confessed that we were from the north, and could he tell us what the correct local pronunciation was? He smiled broadly and said slowly "Ho-li-day Inn"

In Italian
London is Londra
Paris is Parigi
Munchen (Munich) is Monaco
Frankfurt is Francoforte
Stockholm is Stoccolma
Stuttgart is Stoccarda
Rijeka is Fiume
Geneve (Geneva) is Ginevra
and then you have, Edimburgo, Berlino, Marsiglia, Mosca, and what have you.

However at the stations on the signs, you see the name in the original language.

Roberto, the one that gets me is Monaco - it always takes me a second to figure which one they are talking about!

I missed a train because I was looking for Florence NOT Firenze - that's not going to happen again :) But thankfully some guy at the station finally took pity on me and pointed me to the next train for Firenze. It was a long day:(

Exactly my point Donna

When you are in Paris taking a train to Germany, just as the Germans have their own names for certain places in France, Belgium and

Holland, likewise with the French having their own names for certain places in Germany. Those place you see at Gare de l'Est, ie the TGV going to Mayence (Mainz) or Francfort (Frankfurt), and obviously, from Gare du Nord Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen).

"spelling and pronunciation of Italian cities" are NOT "converted for English-speaking people."

Different languages have different spellings for different place names all over the world. It's not unique to English (nor to Italian cities).

It's linguistics. My guess is that many of our place names for Italy come from the French (thanks to William the Conqueror). A lot of the sounds in Italian - especially vowel endings - are silent in French and they just pronounced names "with a French accent." Also remember that until recently (2-3 centuries), spelling wasn't standardized and people wrote more phonetically.

Still, some are less obvious than others. How did Livorno become Leghorn?

"How did Livorno become Leghorn?"

In some ancient texts and works, it was referred to as "Legorno". Probably how Leghorn came to be in English.

Metairie is pronounced MET-uh-ree, hometown of Ellen DeGeneres. Louisiana is problematic for name pronunciation.

But to JiminVA's point .... when traveling to most countries - heck even Hawaii - it would be good to be at least able to recognize the name's of places and streets in the language of the country

And locals in Basque Spain have different names for their towns than the Spanish names. Place names are in dispute, even within the USA. While the spelling's the same for everybody, Buena Vista, along the Arkansas River in central Colorado, is pronounced Bee-yew-na-viss-ta by many Coloradoans, and "Bway-na-vees-ta" by many others, and simply "buhyew-nee" by lots of locals. Speaking of the Arkansas River, while it's "Ar-can-saw" to many, I understand that, where it passes through Kansas, it's the "Ar-kansas" River

I guess my point was why can't the city name in the country be pronounced exactly as the locals call it? Sure not hard to say Firenze, Milano, or Roma. Even the baker I routinely see in Firenze knows how to say " New York" and he doesn't speak a lick of English

Jim, if your baker is old enough will remember Ruggero Orlando, a famous TV journalist and anchor man in the 60s and 70s, that was sent to USA and began his speeches in daily news with a "qui Ruggero Orlando da Nuova York".

I remember that when living in France, I would hear the news on French radio and had a hard time understanding it. But every once in awhile, I'd hear an American name or place, pronounced the proper way in English, and at least know what the subject was about.

And when foreigners come to the US they should use English to refer to our place names

• The Angels, Saint Francis, and I Found It, cities in California
• People, in the state of Ruddy Colored
• Water City, the largest city in the state of Cloudy Water
• Brother Love, the largest city in Penn's Woods
• Red Stick, the capital of Louis Land

It is true that there are lots of place names in the world that are translated into other languages, as has been pointed out, and lots of others that have no foreign-language translations. Cinque Terre, for instance, or Mont Blanc, you would never hear translated into English (or any other language, I would presume).

Lane, Mont Blanc is Monte Bianco for Italians. There is a long standing quarrel between French and Italian cartographers about the ownership of the main peak.

. . . and there's the Matterhorn/Monte Cervino name dispute, depending from where you're viewing that mountain.

Monte Cervino doesn't look anything like the Matterhorn. Who said, "A rose by any other name....."?

In some parts of England, place names and even street names date to before the English language existed. Yorkshire, for example has many places with Norse (Viking) names.
Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate and Micklegate have existed as streets in York under those names for more than 1000 years. Nobody is going to translate them now, and probably less than 1% of the population of York even knows what they mean.

I think it all comes down what comes naturally to a person. I don't think it's pretentious. Why do people like to assume negative intent? Are there pretentious people... of course, but most aren't.
I grew up in France and French names come naturally to me without even thinking. I have to actually stop and think for a minute how an American would say it.
I try to remember to translate to English when I'm not with other travelers but it feels really strange to me.

I will just leave this here....

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/enchilada/n9970?snl=1

Discuss

The post from Tom_MN made me laugh! We grew up in south Louisiana, Cajun Country. When I was in middle school my Mom had relatives coming from Nebraska to visit. Uncle Leroy called the house and said they were lost and my dad asked where they were. UL said they were in a town called (his pronunciation thigh-bo-decks) My dad was puzzled and then popped out laughing. He gave them directions and when he got off the phone we were all anxious to find out where. They were in
Thibodeaux. About 30 miles down the road, we were in Houma. From then on, within our family,
we would say thigh-bo-decks and laugh! You should have heard the pronunciations when we took them to New Orleans!

When in a foreign country I try to spell and pronounce the local way. If in doubt, I ask.
Uncle Leroy gave us all grief about not knowing how to spell and we all got some laughs out of it!

I made a joke above about US place names that are in foreign languages.

Turns out the joke is on me.

I had to apply for a visa for my upcoming visit to Brazil. It was issued from their consulate in San Francisco. I received it today.

Under "Place of Issuing" it says "SÃO FRANCISCO."