That's hilarious. I had a customer in a computer store (decades ago) ask if I knew where to find Juarez. Given we were in Houston, it wasn't an unreasonable question so I asked, "Juarez...Mexico?"

"No, like wah-rez...the illegal software downloads."

"Oh...right. N-no." Setting aside that I'm not into giving out professional "how to break the law" advice, I was just completely baffled. I figured "warez" came from "softwares" that were being distributed. Never crossed my mind to pronounce it phonetically.

I have met folks who pronounce it like "Juarez" but where I grew up it was "wares." IMO the latter makes much more sense because it's likely derived from "software(s)". But so much discussion about warez was nonverbal, it doesn't surprise me that the word took on different pronunciations.

"Ciudad Warez" would be a fantastic name for a bbs or a torrent site.

Funny how, depending from where you are, this is a strange question. Juarez is pronounced hwah-rez.

As a kid I pronounced it “where-is” and only as an adult did I realize the mistake lol

Wares - Just like "wears"

In Estonian, "vares" [v-uh-res] stands for crow (corvus). I first met the w-word as a kid of the early 1990s; however, to this day, that analogy is still the first that pops up to me. A warez is a vares is a vares.

You're the second person to ask that. Can I ask why you think Juarez would work? Not trying to be mocking, just curious if its a regional thing that explains it or something else. That Warez = wares with a Z for cool factor was self evident to me growing up on the east coast of the US at the time.

There was also Wai-rez.

You really have the pick the pronunciation for the occasion with this one.

Juarez

A bit both, basically wares, but drag the z sound out a bit.