Wouldn’t be the first time I’m wrong, but I think it’s Croatian, and if so, it’s Hock.
I do not think so. Never seen such a name. and like Dan said they are super phonetic. They ain't got time to be making new sounds by combining letters. If you want a sound, you have a letter for it. And don't even effin thing about silent letters, that shizzzz don't fly.
We don’t double letters since each letter in a word is pronounced. So the name would be H-Ah-Ah-K. But a lot of people Americanized their names when they moved here 60+ years ago as it was recommended to ease pronunciation. Also I don’t think they were really given a choice if their names had accented letters.
Whenever you meet someone with ch at the end of their name there’s a good chance they’re Easter European. In some cases ‘ck’ as well. Bill Belichick is actually Biličić, his grandparents are Croatian.
my family name ends with a ć that was americanized to a simple c and pronounced as if ending ck. Im born and bred American. I don't speak the language. I never was comfortable with the actual Croatian pronunciation. ć =/= "ck" exactly. It more like the sound comes from the back of the tongue & roof of the mouth and just slips out. If i was to transcribe it i would say its more like "cqueh" like if you said "barbecue", but obviously didn't say "barbe" at all and do not emphasize the "cue" hard. You're probably like, huh? Yeah that's how i feel. Except infinitely more shame since it's supposed to be in my family name.
ETA:
Oh god, i googled it:
"There's no exact English equivalent to ć, but the closest would be the sound of t in British English “tune” (pronounced ty)"
GTFO, that's not it either. That's even worse then my example.
fwiw, of croatian's Three Cs, plan ol' c is my favorite,"ts". Followed by č, "ch". and then stupid ass ć, "cqueh" or "kyuh" or "ty"
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