Steimle. How would you say it?
All my life I’ve had to deal with people mispronouncing my name when they read it, or spelling my name wrong when I tell it to them and they have to write it down. I probably wasn’t more than four years old when I realized I should always spell my name out for people when I said it to them since they were either going to ask or spell it wrong. I can always tell if someone knows my family if I meet them and they say or spell my name correctly.
“Steimle”
“S-T-E-I-M-L-E?”
“Yep, you must know someone in my family.”
“Yeah, I knew the Steimles in Glendora…”
That’s how the conversation usually goes (my dad’s cousin Doug Steimle lives in Glendora and was the long-time owner/operator of the swimming pool design/construction company California Pools after his father Wayne Steimle, the founder, retired).
As far as helping people to spell my last name goes, I’m not sure there’s any way to help people out with that other than spelling it out for them. But pronunciation is a different matter. Most Americans will say “steemul”, “steemlee”, or some variant. Occasionally I’ll get a “stymul” or “stimel” which is pretty close. But probably less than 10 people in my life have pronounced it correctly (excepting those who already knew the name).
Most commonly I’ll tell people it rhymes with “timely”. I figure that’s a decent way to explain it. Timely Steimle. The only problem is that then people expect me to always be on time to things or to mysteriously show up whenever I’m needed, invited or not, and this creates its own set of problems.
So if you’ve got any ideas as to how best to explain how to say my last name, I’d love to hear it, or read it, rather.
I think you’re stuck with timely…you could make up a new word – rhymely. It rhymes with rhymely – makes it easy to remember.
and then, of course, there’s the heimlich maneuver…or those awesome mimes. Allow me to explain the pronunciation of my last name in ‘mimely’ fashion, and then mime it out. Better yet, mime out the heimlich maneuver.
What about money…Dimes or dimely lol.
Stick with “timely”, but then say that “Joshua” is Jewish for “Not very” and that will get you off the hook for punctuality.
If it is any consolation you aren’t the only one. I’d wager one-third to half of American’s want to pronounce my last name as Cleaverly even though there isn’t an A anywhere in sight. Even fewer are confident in their ability to spell it. Saying “just like the adverb” doesn’t help. I usually say “clever + L-Y” or “C-L-E-V-E-R-L-Y”…
My last name is Steimle too! I usually tell people it is pronounced like Stein with an M and the name “Lee.” It tends to work for most situations.
This will be a constant in your life…become one with it…it is yours. It is pronounced correctly in Germany. You could move there. I usually went with what ever someone said because that would mean they would forget who I was later. But if I really made any effort to explain the name I would remind them of the name of the piano company Steinway and say my name was similar without the inheritance…Stei-m-lee. That way the name was associated with excellence.
PS K Steimle Welch, daughter to the CA pool Co Wayne Steimle without the inheritance.