I mean, I get that the word “Staples” has a lot of features that a non-Anglophone is going to have trouble with (like how the “a” is long “ā” /ei/, and the final syllable is /pl̩z/, with a syllabic ell and not even a schwa to show for a vowel), but it’s a standard English name, and even a common English noun with two distinct, common meanings.
But still. Such a hamfisted attempt at phonetically reading it out is like me cold-calling Delhi and trying to pronounce “Bhattacharya” as “bat - ah - shar - ee - ah”. Yeah, no.
Well, the town is La Crosse and the river is St. Croix. Name is a mashup of the two. Kind of smart branding, since it made a bit of a unique neologism that (at least regionally) still sounded familiar.
