Speaking of which

[prog]

How would you pronounce the surname "Theurer", if it belongs to an American? I'm going with a lisping "Sawyer", but maybe you know better. (Hmm, a Google-found page suggests "Tyrer".)

Comments

[radtea.livejournal.com]

In my experience Americans pronounce all names roughly phonetically with no regard to the language of origin. Weirdly, so do Canadians, at least in the West. I knew a guy in the army whose name was Guy Desnoiers, which would properly be pronounced Gi Deh-noy'-ay, but who was always called "Guy" (as in guy-wire) Des'-noy-ers.

According to ancestry.com Theurer is of germanic origin, so a lisping "Sawyer" ought not to be too far off. Dunno how anyone could get "Tyrer" out of it unless it's Welsh or Gailic, in which case all bets are off.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Actually, I had a friend in jr. high whose last name was spelled Neuffer, which in German would be pronounced "noyfer", but its pronunciation had mutated into "knifer" (well, not with the K sound, but you get the idea). So Theurer -> "Tyrer" would at least be following a similar trajectory into American English.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Right, I generally assume that any American surname of non-English-speaking origins has got a century or so of mumbling bastardization behind it.

I went to a high school called St. John Neumann, which was pronounced "Newman". Once we had an assembly where a learnéd guest said that it really ought to be pronounced "Noyman" coz that's how the school's namesake pronounced his own name, and so the vice principal self-consciously called the school "Noyman" for the rest of the assembly to humor the visiting dude, and we never really let him live it down.

buh-dang-ga-bloing ba-dink *whoosh* POP

[ahkond.livejournal.com]

(knock on the door)

Hello, ... NOYMAN!

[prog.livejournal.com]

I spent a decade in Maine, home to many folks with French names which are generally pronounced as originally conceived, and then you have cities like Calais, which is officially pronounced like "callous". (Even by its francophonic population, afaik.)

[ianmcin.livejournal.com]

I would pronounce it to rhyme with "furor".

[gemini6ice.livejournal.com]

THUR-urr

[(Anonymous)]

I was googling my family and came across this... my name is Theurer. we have long since lost the german pronounciation i believe, but we just say "Thur" like thursday.