My understanding is that the high sylabic count "Noo-AHL-lee-unz." version comes from the low life, blue colar YATs (contraction of YOU and AT) of Bucktown (North East of the French Quarter) rather than the Uptown sugar barons. YATs are a matriarchal society and have phrase like "MOM-N-EM" for "Mother and them".

Keep your ears tuned for the YATs, there closer to a Brooklyn, NY or Eastern European dialect than they are to Mississippi where they might be more likely to say "noo-AW-lins."

Hope to see you at O'Flaherty's