Johann Sebastian Bach from Eisenach
(Here's some Bach music for the background if you'd like.)
Now, you probably aren't descended from Johann Sebastian- although who knows- the man had 20 children from his two marriages, 11 of whom reached adulthood. But it’s the old master’s birthday, and we’ll take that as a happy excuse to talk about names like Bach. Bach (and other German names ending in -ach) have a hard time in English, because English doesn’t have that rough -kh sound (outside of parts of Scotland). We usually pronounce it in English as “bahck”, and just a few hard-core people use the German pronunciation. Just how do you pronounce that name in German?
Now what if you have a name like that and you don’t have hordes of music majors protecting the (semi-)German pronunciation of your name? In the 1600’s, 1700’s, well into the 1800’s, Americans generally anglicized Bach into Baugh, that’s what would happen. If you have a Bough in your family, it might well trace back to that English word bough ’tree branch’, but a Bough or particularly Baugh is apt to mark a German ancestor. But why the gh? British and Americans were accustomed to hearing Scottish and Irish and Scots-Irish still using the kh, and ‘akh’ was written -augh. MacNaughton, MacDonough, Cavanaugh, Gaughan were still often pronounced with the old rough kh, and so when Germans showed up, their names got the same treatment:
Strasbach became Strasbaugh (‘Streetcreek’) Richardsbach became Rickbaugh (‘Richards Creek’) Grünbach became Grumbaugh (‘Greencreek’) Braunbach became Brumbaugh (‘Browncreek’) And of course, Bach came over as Baugh. Some German-American Bachs still pronounce their family “Bock”, as close to Bach as English comes; others long since switched to the English pronunciation “baw”, where the kh/gh had long since gone silent.
‘Bach’ is German for stream- in English we use stream, creek, crick, and words like that... including the northern England dialect word beck (‘a stony creek’). That’s also the North German or Plattdeutsch word. Our great-grandfather came from a farmstead with the Plattdeutsch name Muusbeck; High German would have had Mausbach, ‘Mouse Crick’. I could only guess why it got that name.
If you want to know more about the crazy English spelling of -ough, go visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ough_(orthography).
~~~~
Would you like to share this piece with your audience? You have full permission to share as long as you include Stefan's bio and this link to sign up and keep in touch with us.
