# Pronunciation of the surname "Boehner" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 4, 2010, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442 "2010-11-04T12:30:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442/41 "2010-11-05T04:53:55Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > Which is also how “Star Trek’s” Walter Koenig pronounces his name. Or martin Landau’s “Commander Koenig” on Space:1999. They consistently pronounced it “Kern-ig” but with excellent Germanic vowels: kind of “KyeoRn-InG”. Hey, maybe Commander Koenig and Chekov were related! ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442/42 "2010-11-05T08:14:07Z")
Yeah, I would have called it “Boner” but I can see why he wouldn’t want that. People can pronounce their own names however they want. I once knew a Gagne who pronounced it “guhNAY.” The next Gagne I met pronounced it “GONEyuh.” I forget how the third one did it, but it was still different. (Funny, it seems like such an obscure name, yet I have run into three unrelated people bearing it.) I also know a RYEorden and a reeORduh. Both spelled Riordan. I also know someone who can’t put her last name on a license plate in her state. Her last name is Bonk. And there’s not a lot of alternative ways to pronounce that, either. ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442/43 "2010-11-05T08:31:07Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > Before I answer that question, I am curious to know where you’re from, because a difference I. Our accents might be relevant. I’m Swedish with a passing knowledge of German. > [@acsenray](#): > > However, _ö_ can \*always \*be written as _oe_, so long as it is done consistently throughout the text. > > The same one-directional relationship is true of _ä/ae_ and _ü/ue_. As it happens the origins of ‘ä’ (‘æ’), ‘ü’ and ‘ö’ (‘ø’, ‘œ’) are ‘ae’, ‘ue’ and ‘oe’ shortened by handwriting monks in the same way that ‘et’ became ‘&’ and ‘at’ became ‘@’. In Scandinavian we also have ‘aa’ turned into ‘å’ and French has ‘os’ turned into ‘ô’ (‘hostel’ \> ‘hôtel’ \> ‘hotel’). ---
**Author:** ![Norse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a9adbd/32.png) [@Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Norse)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442/44 "2010-11-05T08:44:26Z")
Boy, you Americans have some weird pronunciations 😉 My native language is one of the Germanic ones, and I use the following pronounciations: “oe” ligature: ö (German, Swedish) / ø (Danish, Norwegian) / œ (French) like the “u” in “burner”. “ae” ligature: ä (German, Swedish) / æ (Danish, Norwegian) like the “a” in “can” (or US English, “can’t” as well). “aa” ligature: å (all Scandinavian languages) like the “o” in “forecast” ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442/45 "2010-11-05T08:55:44Z")
Si Amigo writes: \> . . . Likewise Lima is pronuced Lie-Ma and Russia is pronounced Roo-sha . . . I grew up twenty-five miles from Lima. Yes, people in Lima, Ohio pronounce the name of the city like Lie-Ma and not Lee-Ma. It’s just like everybody else pronounces it in the term “lima beans”. Whenever they have occasion to talk about Lima, Peru, they pronounce it as Lee-Ma. On the other hand, I don’t recall anybody ever pronouncing the word “Russia” as “Roo-sha”. They call it Ru-sha. Undoubtedly there are a few people in Ohio who say Roo-sha, but there are other Americans who say that too. Using an Americanized pronunciation for an American city (which happens to differ from the standard American pronunciation for a foreign city) isn’t the same thing as mispronouncing the standard American pronunciation for a foreign city. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442/46 "2010-11-05T09:59:10Z")
I’ve never understood why people think [ø] and [e] sound so different. I guess the result is somewhat close to [ɜ], but I don’t hear it as any further than from [e]. If anything, it’s closer to the sound of ugh, when used to display disgust. ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442/47 "2010-11-05T10:13:17Z")
Believe me, they are two totally different sounds. ---
**Author:** ![Jervoise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d2c977/32.png) [@Jervoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jervoise)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442/48 "2010-11-05T10:16:58Z")
The Economist’s [language blog](http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2010/11/pronunciation) writes on Boehner. ---
**Author:** ![C.Montgomery\_Burns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecd19e/32.png) [@C.Montgomery\_Burns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C.Montgomery_Burns)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442/49 "2010-11-05T22:46:23Z")
> [@Si\_Amigo](#): > > For example, people look at you strange if you don’t pronounce the Ohio town of Versailles as Ver-Sales.:smack: And they will correct you until you pronounce the correct way.:smack::smack: Hey! We pronounce it Ver-sales in Illinois, too! I’m from the town of Versailles. It was names after a town in Kentucky, also pronounced Ver-sales, by the founders of the town. That _is_ the way it’s pronounced! It has nothing to do with France. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442/50 "2010-11-05T22:53:01Z")
> [@Norse](#): > > Boy, you Americans have some weird pronunciations 😉 My native language is one of the Germanic ones, and I use the following pronounciations: > > “oe” ligature: ö (German, Swedish) / ø (Danish, Norwegian) / œ (French) like the “u” in “burner”. > “ae” ligature: ä (German, Swedish) / æ (Danish, Norwegian) like the “a” in “can” (or US English, “can’t” as well). > “aa” ligature: å (all Scandinavian languages) like the “o” in “forecast” The reason you can equate these sounds us that your pronounciation of English is different from ours. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442/51 "2010-11-05T23:41:50Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#): > > People can pronounce their own names however they want. [Hyacinthe Bucket] It’s Boo-kay! [/HB] ---
**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, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442/52 "2010-11-06T21:33:04Z")
> [@BubbaDog](#): > > I grew up in a German inhabited section of St. Louis with kids named Koenig (KAY-nig), Poehling (PAY-ling) and Boehm (BAME). > > There was one hold out name Roeder (ROW-der) I’m from the other side of Missouri, & grew up with the name “Goetz” pronounced “gates.” But it doesn’t always go to “ay” as you note. When speaking of the assassin, I always wonder if “Roeder” is Anglicized “Rayder,” “Reeder,” or “Rohder.” I guess it could be “Rudder.” I knew a girl in college surnamed Doennig who pronounced it “Dunning”–as I was studying German, I found it amusing to call her “Durnish” as a more straightforward Anglicization of how her name would appear to be pronounced in the modern Hochdeutsch dialect. And my own ancestors (who may have been Ashkenazim from further east rather than Deutschers from what’s now Deutschland) turned an “oen” into the sound of the English name “Ann.” Other Askenazim took the same “oen” & Anglicized into “oh-un.” ---
**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, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442/53 "2010-11-06T21:45:38Z")
A-ha! > [@John Cowan](#): > > I am no expert in German onomastics, but Boehner seems to mean ‘person from Böhn or Böhen’. The only such place that Google Maps knows is Böhen in Bavaria, and indeed Bavarian (as opposed to Bavarian-accented Standard German) does not have front rounded vowels. So the name was probably quite close to “BAY-ner” originally, and has remained so. > > As for Americans not being able to swallow their r’s, there are probably at least fifty million native-born Americans who are non-rhotic. [http://www.economist.com/comment/722173#comment-722173](http://www.economist.com/comment/722173#comment-722173) ---
**Author:** ![chizzuk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@chizzuk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chizzuk)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442/54 "2010-11-07T05:12:20Z")
Wouldn’t it be closer to “Beuh-nuh?” The German that I’ve heard doesn’t rhoticize r’s that fall at the end of syllables or words. They also devoice all the final stops. So “Wir sind” is more like “vee-uh zint.” I can guess why they do this: with the uvular r, getting all your articulators back in position to make that sound at the end of the word would be really time-consuming. German in general seems to me to take more time to articulate: I enjoyed listened to alternating broadcasts during the World Cup and it never seemed to take the English commentators nearly as long to say “Lukas Podolski” as it did the ZDF guys to say “Looooo-kasssss Poh-dohl-skeeee.” Or “press conference” versus “prehss-eh kahn-feh-renssss.” ---
**Author:** ![ruadh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d2c977/32.png) [@ruadh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruadh)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442/55 "2010-11-07T07:34:32Z")
My first college roommate’s surname was Bohner. I’m not sure if it originally had an “e” after the “o”, or an umlaut which her family dropped. But anyway, she pronounced it “Bonner”. ---
**Author:** ![Norse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a9adbd/32.png) [@Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Norse)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442/56 "2010-11-07T11:40:30Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > your pronounciation of English is different from ours. It is? How? Please elaborate, I’m all ears. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442/57 "2010-11-07T18:23:29Z")
> [@Norse](#): > > “ae” ligature: ä (German, Swedish) / æ (Danish, Norwegian) like the “a” in “can” (or US English, “can’t” as well). I didn’t know this. Do you mean that in BrE, _can_ and _can’t_ don’t have the same vowel sound? I’m only referring to the quality of the vowel and not its duration; the /t/ in the latter tends to shorten the vowel so I wouldn’t expect them to be 100% the same. Or is the difference between _can_ meaning a container and _can_ the verb? ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442/58 "2010-11-07T18:29:15Z")
> [@John Cowan](#): > > As for Americans not being able to swallow their r’s R’s are as Marmite to us. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442/59 "2010-11-07T18:36:40Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I didn’t know this. Do you mean that in BrE, _can_ and _can’t_ don’t have the same vowel sound? I’m only referring to the quality of the vowel and not its duration; the /t/ in the latter tends to shorten the vowel so I wouldn’t expect them to be 100% the same. > > Or is the difference between _can_ meaning a container and _can_ the verb? In British English, can has the ham vowel but can’t has the AH vowel. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442/60 "2010-11-07T18:41:15Z")
> [@Norse](#): > > It is? How? Please elaborate, I’m all ears. If you render burner like German boehner then you’re using a different sound than the r colored vowel used in American English, which is not rounded like the German umaluted vowel. As to the other, English distinguishes the vowels between Ken and can. A umlaut is like Ken not can. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pronunciation-of-the-surname-boehner/559442.md?page=4)