Spelling it on the other hand…
Schwarzenegger refers to a region in southern Germany called the Schwarzen (Black) Egg (Ridge). A person from the Black Ridge region is a Schwarzenegger.
Huh. I’ve always pronounced and heard it as you have it. But here’s that NPR story with Ray Davies pronouncing his own name. And, yeah, it’s something closer to “Davis.”
IIRC I’ve heard him claim that it means (black?) ploughman.
Whoosh!
(I’m like 99% sure…)
This is from Joan Baez’s autobiography:
"I gave Time a long-winded explanation of the pronunciation of my name which came out wrong, was printed wrong in Time magazine, and has been pronounced wrong ever since. It’s not “Buy-ezz”; it’s more like “Bize,” but never mind. The French pronounce it “Bayz,” which (phonetically speaking) is the present tense of the verb baiser, which in slang means “to fornicate.”
indeed, exactly my point 
also - Rene Auberjonois may not be the most difficult to pronounce, but still a pain in the ass. (Oscar performance in “The Big Bus”, btw)
And I think, though I may be wrong, the “black” refers to a place, possibly the Black Forest region of Germany. I know he’s Austrian, but that doesn’t mean his name is strictly from there.
The entire Favre family has apparently either been mispronouncing or misspelling their name for decades now.
Gena Rowlands. I learned at this year’s Oscars.
Admiral Hyman Rickover pronounced it as ‘GAY-tuh’ in one speech. Similarly, Walter Koenig’s last name is pronounced ‘KAY-nig’. And OJ’s pronounced his first name as “uh-REN-THEE-uhl,” instead of “Oh-ren-thal,” as it would seem to be.
Interesting; I didn’t know that. Thanks for the info. Are there any other words featuring that vowel sound that I might have heard, so that I could get an idea of what it sounds like?
Most people who actually knew Lugosi (including his son) seem to pronounce it “Bayla,” so it seems to my amateur ears like “Bayla” is at least, shall we say, the preferred approximation for English speakers?
Bob Moog, the inventor of the synthesizer.
I thought his last name is “moooog”, but it actually rhymes with “vogue”. I just can’t get used to that.
lol yeah like Andy, the former goalie.
I always thought it was g(schwa)-tuh (lol wish my keyboard could do an up-side-down “e”.)
(awesome little piece, btw, on him in the New Yorker recently)
Just about every Spanish or Italian word containing the letter “e” has this mid-vowel sound. English speakers sometimes substitute with the “ay” (as in “say”) sound, and occasionally with the “eh” sound, but neither is really correct. You’ll be understood by an Italian or Spanish speaker, but they’ll notice your foreign accent.
The correct sound is just about between “ay” and “eh”, in terms of mouth position.
Re Goethe: Actually I think your right, it’s Ger-tuh and you kind of swallow the r.
I’ve heard “Black farmer” and “black valley” for Schwarzenegger.
Robert Guillaume, I don’t know how long I was watching Benson before I found out how he pronounced his name.
Bill and Ted nod enthusiastically in agreement.
I only just recently figured out that the Conyeigh West I heard about on TV and Kanye (Can-yeh) West that I stumble across in magazines sometimes are the same dude.
I thought that it was “Black Oak”.
At any rate, I had always thought that Ralph Fiennes was “Ralf”, but, apparently, it’s “RAFE”.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus is Looey, not Louise.
Yes, I guess so. Thanks.
Looks like Arnold mentioned plo(w/ugh)man in a Letterman interview, but I can’t verify right now.
File under: bizarre British names e.g. Featheringstonehaugh, St. John.
It’s not an affectation, her father is French.