You’ve nailed tricky Irish names, Welsh names, Spanish names, and Arabic names. Your favorite fun fact is that Roald Dahl’s first name is “ROO-all,” not “ROLLED,” as he’s named after Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. And when someone butchers the brand name Givenchy in your presence, it takes every ounce of self-control not to correct them before they can even finish their sentence.
So here’s a question: How many of these German names can you already pronounce perfectly, and how long will it take you to master the ones you can’t?
Former chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel’s first name is pronounced “AHNG-geh-lah” with a hard “g” sound like that in angle, not angel.
A German j sounds like an English y, so Anja is “AHN-yah.”
Arne is “AR-neh,” with a guttural “r” sound like those heard in French names (e.g. Arnaud).
Don’t run the last couple vowels together like you would when saying “Sebastian” in English. Bastian in German is “BAH-stee-AHN.”
Birgit is “BEER-git,” where the “r” is guttural and -git rhymes with it.
The German Cathrin doesn’t sound identical to the English Catherine. It’s “KAT-reen” (again with a guttural “r”).
Like Arne, the e in Elke isn’t silent—it’s “ELL-keh.”
It’s not “FRAWK,” but “FROW-keh,” where the “r” is guttural and the first syllable rhymes with brow (not grow).
If the Friends barista had ever abandoned his Central Perk post for a job in Germany, he would have gotten used to hearing his name pronounced “GOON-tah.”
Heike is simply “HIKE-eh.”
The s in Ilse is typically pronounced like an English z: “ILL-zeh.”
If the Jonas Brothers were German, we’d all be saying their surname as “YOH-nahss.”
The r all but disappears in Jürgen, so it’s something like “YUH-gehn.”
Jutta is “YUH-tah,” where the vowel sound in the first syllable is similar to that of hood and good.
Young readers of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events may have assumed the middle Baudelaire sibling’s name sounded identical to claws and Claus. In German, though, Klaus is pronounced “KLOWSS,” like mouse and house.
Beethoven’s first name is pronounced “LUHD-vig,” where the first syllable rhymes with hood and good. To nail the whole name, remember that van is “FAHN” and Beethoven is “BEYT-hoh-fun,“ where the last syllable is spoken so fast it almost sounds like “fn.”
English speakers often mispronounce Marlene Dietrich’s first name as “mar-LEEN,” but it should be “mar-LEH-neh” (with a guttural “r”).
Ignore your English speaker’s instincts on this one, too: Matthias in German is “mah-TEE-ahss.”
The v in Volker sounds like an English f, so it’s “FOHL-kah.”
Beethoven isn’t the only famous composer whose name has a w that trips up English speakers. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s first name is pronounced “VOLF-gahng.”
Ellen Gutoskey
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