# Pronunciation of John Boehner's last name **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 6, 2010, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-john-boehners-last-name/559666 "2010-11-06T03:46:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-john-boehners-last-name/559666/1 "2010-11-06T03:46:06Z")
Is John Boehner’s last name pronounced bay-ner instead of bo-ner because of the desire to avoid sounding like the word boner? If Boehner is in fact supposed to be pronounced bay-ner, are there any other words/names with similar spelling & pronunciation? The closest I could come up with is the last name Schroeder, which is pronounced shro-der and not shray-der (i.e. these seem to me both German-origin names, and both have an oe in them, but in one case it’s pronounced ay and in the other case o) ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-john-boehners-last-name/559666/2 "2010-11-06T05:22:10Z")
A vowel followed by an “e” in these names is typically an indication of a German/Germanic last name that was once spelled with an umlaut. So Schroeder and Boehner were once spelled Schröder and Böhner. Since we don’t have umlauts in English, the pronunciation tends to get corrupted over time. The way that Boehner’s name is pronounced is no worse than the way you pronounce Schroeder, that is, they’re both sort of “wrong” but that’s the way it’s said now, at least for Americans. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-john-boehners-last-name/559666/3 "2010-11-06T06:58:54Z")
It should be pronounced, depending on the German dialect of his ancestors, something like “beur-nuh” or “behr-nuh.” Maybe “Boy-nuh.” “Schroeder” is “Shroy-duh” in some German dialects. But there’s a great deal of variation in Deutsch pronunciation, & then the “oe” got completely mangled in Anglicization. (My ancestors had an “oen” sound mutate into the sounds of the English name “Ann.”) ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-john-boehners-last-name/559666/4 "2010-11-06T15:01:16Z")
Not ‘oy’. That’s the sound ‘eu’ makes. As in [Freund](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Freund#Pronunciation) (froynd) or Eugen (OY-gen). [GQ thread on the pronunciation of Boeher’s name](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=584265). ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-john-boehners-last-name/559666/5 "2010-11-06T21:22:21Z")
What I’m saying is it varies. In standard High German, it should be a bit like “burner,” or like English “book” with the “k” knocked off & “nuh” added, but Deutscher politician Gerhard Schroeder does pronounce his name almost like English-spelling “shroyda.” That said, for Boehner’s dialect as a Midwestern German-American, “Baner” is correct. Anglo “ay” for German “oe” is a pretty common vowel shift. In my hometown a bit to the west of Boehner’s, there’s a road spelled “Goetz” & pronounced “gates.” ---
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-john-boehners-last-name/559666/6 "2010-11-06T21:54:04Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > What I’m saying is it varies. In standard High German, it should be a bit like “burner,” or like English “book” with the “k” knocked off & “nuh” added, but Deutscher politician Gerhard Schroeder does pronounce his name almost like English-spelling “shroyda.” > > That said, for Boehner’s dialect as a Midwestern German-American, “Baner” is correct. Anglo “ay” for German “oe” is a pretty common vowel shift. In my hometown a bit to the west of Boehner’s, there’s a road spelled “Goetz” & pronounced “gates.” If I understand correctly from the comments in that other thread: [ol] [li]For some Germans, it’s pronounced like “burner”, without the ‘r’[/li][li]For some Germans, it’s pronounced like “boy-ner”[/li][li]For some Germans, it’s pronounced like “bay-ner”[/li][li]For Americans, it’s pronounced like “bay-ner”[/li][/ol] Are the above statements correct? ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-john-boehners-last-name/559666/7 "2010-11-06T21:56:39Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Not ‘oy’. That’s the sound ‘eu’ makes. As in [Freund](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Freund#Pronunciation) (froynd) or Eugen (OY-gen). I was once puzzled over how to pronounce “eu” in German. Was my face red when the penny dropped and I figured the word “Deutschland” ought to have given me a clue. :o ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-john-boehners-last-name/559666/8 "2010-11-06T22:41:42Z")
Since there’s a thread in GQ, I’m going to close this one. **twickster** , moderator