How to pronounce German names

German spelling is consistent: if you learn a short list of letters that behave differently from English, almost every German name reads itself. The mismatches cluster on six letters — j, w, v, z, and the vowel pairs ei and ie — plus a handful of sounds English does not have. The good news is that, unlike English, there are no silent letters and no surprise pronunciations lurking in everyday names: Johann is said exactly the way its rules dictate.

j is y. Johann and Josef begin with a y sound. There is no English j in German. w is v — Wolfgang starts VOLF-, and the car brand Volkswagen is literally “folks-vah-gen”. v is f, the reverse trade: Sabine has an f in the middle, so it is zah-BEE-neh.

z is ts. The German z is one sound, the ts of “cats”: Mercedes is mer-TSAY-des. ei is eye and ie is ee. This pair reverses English instincts completely: Heidi is HIGH-dee, Siemens is ZEE-mens. Initial s before a vowel is z — Sabine and Siemens begin with a buzzing z, and initial st is sht: Stefan is shteh-FAHN.

German surnames apply the same six rules, with a few extras worth knowing. Müller (the miller) and Jäger (the hunter) carry the ü and ä; anglicised spellings Mueller and Jaeger are how they were written when ü was unavailable, and English speakers often keep the plain u or a. Schmidt and Schneider begin with sch, the sh of “ship”, so Schmidt rhymes with “shmit” and Schneider with “shny-der”. Brandt, Kraft and Weiss are one-syllable names with the ei (eye) and the ss/ß distinction — Weiss is VICE, since the w is a v. And because stress falls on the first syllable in German family names, an English speaker saying “SHUM-acher” for the racing surname Schumacher is closer than they think — German says SHOO-mah-cher.

The top-five list of German surnames — Müller, Schmidt, Schneider, Fischer, Weber — contains four occupational names and one patronymic, which is a reminder that German names were ordinary words before they were names. If you can pronounce the word, you can pronounce the name that grew out of it.

The names above will get you understood, but three German sounds are worth meeting because they repeat in almost every name. ch is one of two sounds neither of which is an English k or h: after e, i, ä, ö or ü it is soft, close to the h in “huge” (Friedrich, München); after a, o, u it is a stronger throaty breath (Bach, Buch). ü, as in Jürgen and München, is the “ee” position with the lips pushed forward into a whistling shape. ö, as in Göring and Köln, is “ay” with rounded lips. And the German r is rolled at the back of the throat rather than tapped at the front — the English r is a perfectly acceptable approximation.

Stress in German names almost always falls on the first syllable, which is a relief after French and a contrast with Italian. Friedrich, Angela (AHN-geh-lah) and München all lead with the emphasis.

How to pronounce names — the general method for any name, in any language. Name pronunciation hub — every name guide in one place. How to pronounce French names — the mirror image: stress on the last syllable instead of the first.

Read slowly first. Pronounce each syllable deliberately before trying to blend them at full speed. Rushing hides the vowel and consonant shapes your ear needs to learn.

Record yourself. Most phones have a voice memo app — record a word, then compare it to the playback here. Hearing the gap between your version and the model accent makes targeted practice far easier.

Focus on one accent. Jumping between American, British and Australian in the same session creates confusion. Pick the accent you encounter most and stick with it until the patterns feel natural.

Every word above is a button. Set the accent and voice you want on the main screen, then come back — the guides use whatever you chose. To hear two accents against each other, use Compare; to test whether you can actually hear a contrast, use the listening quiz.