How do we pronounce ''Houghton''?

I would think more like 'Haw-ton'

Stressed HOAT (rhymes with boat) with unreleased t, followed by unstressed N (syllabic N). (AmE)

(It's a town not far from where I was born.)

CJ

We would pronounce it as "hawton" (haw as in saw), but I have a friend here and she has this name and it is pronounced Howton (how/now/cow). So either is correct.

Its my surname and I pronounce it - How ton. I have many different variations though. My father told me that if you are from down south you pronounce it Howton and up north its more likely to be pronounced Haw ton. Hope this helps.

It's my last name too and we pronounce it Hoe-ton. I am from South Carolina, but my dad's family is mostly from Maryland and New York...interesting...

It is my middle name and one of my family surnames. I think the pronunciation is somewhat regionally and family-line dependent. Our Houghton family has been in the area of Monterey, California since the late 1880s, and here we have always pronounce it here as "How tun" (as in "now," and the other one rhymes with "fun.") Both "Hoe-ton" and "Haw-ton" sound to me like plausible regional and personal

Great stuff, SLOphoto1. Sounds like you are in San Luis Obispo. How English names are pronounced tell more about the great vowel shift of Middle English long vowels. Since names are not heavily used words like other function and content words from the dictionary, these names have various pronunciations.

For instance, the vowel digraph < ei > has three phonetic outputs: height; recei

raindoctorUsing u and w in digraphs: if it ends a word, use w (sorrow, now); otherwise u (coup, nous).

I would modify this a little, though there are exceptions.

If it ends a word or if it is followed by final l or n, use w (now, howl, crown); otherwise, use u (soup).

CJ

Anonymous Its my surname and I pronounce it - How ton. I have many different variations though. My father told me that if you are from down south you pronounce it Howton and up north its more likely to be pronounced Haw ton. Hope this helps.

It would be more helpful if you waived a bit of your anonymity and told us which country you live in.

Rover

Long gone, Rover. Anon posted 3 years ago