During the great German-American migration of the early 19th
century, the König surname (King) was routinely anglicized to Koenig
because the American typewriters did not have an O-umlaut character.
Hence, a digraph of “oe” was used to replace the original ö.
1 - König
- The original ö O-umlaut was pronounced as ”oo”, making the original
Germanic pronunciation König as “coon”-“nig”.
2 - Köenig
- Köenig, A northern Dutch
dialect of the original Germanic König is pronounced Kern-nig.
3 – Koenig
- For Americans with the OE changes, “Kay-nig” is an Anglicization of
the original pronunciation.
