This Strombotne family surname has always been a twister. Some get it right first try but others, be they strangers or acquaintances could attempt — make a hash of it and give up or not even try for fear of mangling and risking insult injury. The first syllable was generally easy for them but the rest of it, usually a big fail. Frequently the “t” gets ignored for some reason and it’s uttered phonetically : strom·bone·eeee . Cringe. I had a Junior High PE Coach that would say it Strum·bot·knee with the emphasis on the second syllable. He had the last 2/3rds correct but the first syllable came out like strum (as in strum guitar).

Here’s how: Strom begins with an ST blend phonic same as do words straight or strong and these two consonants precede rom which sounds like ROM (computer read only memory) or rom as in Trombone (the instrument(s) from The Music Man) then bot like in robot and finally “ne” — say knee (the knee bone connected to the…) Strom·bot·ne

Then we have spelling tangles. After they’ve heard the name spoken there is the issue of the last letter. Was that an “i” followed by conversation: “Oh! is that Italian?” No it’s a letter “e”.

Strombotne is an anglicized family name tracing its origin to a farm in Norway — Straumbotn.

Ancestors that lived at Straumbotn and elsewhere had been using a patronymic naming system. The use of a fixed family name was made compulsory by law in Norway in 1923. As a result of this change, many chose and began using their patronymic name as their fixed family name; others (as in our case) chose their farm’s name as their permanent family name and thus the surname name — Strømbotne.

Patronymic Simplified: A child’s last name was derived from the father’s first name. If you had a daughter you would add – datter to the end of the father’s first name, if you had a son you would append  – sen or –son to the father’s first name and this new name compounded would become the Childs surname. Sometimes the name of the farm was used as a 3rd name; not so much as a surname but as an address identifier. The reason being is that after several centuries many now had the same first and last names. A formal change to a fixed family surname  began in the early 1800’s and was widespread by about 1900.

Spelling differed but the sound was always the same. Straum was the (Nordland local) Nynorsk standard and Strøm was the Bokmål way (Danish was the written language of Norway until 1814).

Considering authenticity, I doubted that my ancestors pronounced words anything like we do here in the USA. Then I told a Norwegian friend, last name Tvedt 🙂 of my state of perplexity and asked him to read it into a recorder.

We think that other peoples in broader Scandinavia had been adding a soft “neh” sound to botn, so Strømbotn gained an “e” in its spelling to align with this pronunciation. A second theory is that since there are no English words that end in “tn” consonants that this vowel was added to the spelling. Somewhere along the line the soft “e” (neh sound) became a hard “E” (sounding like knee) the spelling Rule #3: the silent “e” ignored evidently.

After an ah hah! moment of imagining a lifetime spent methodically (incorrectly) correcting people it became clear to me that my instilled conception of pronunciation wasn’t necessarily THE way .

In the case of brief person to person interaction it’s unlikely to matter too much how you pronounce it. No longer do I impose (unless badly adulterated) and even then at times let them know “close” or “good effort” as it gives them satisfaction and allows them to smile. But, for standardization (and extra points) say Strombotne – – – strom·bot·ne, straum·botn, or possibly straum·boat·neh.