Found this on ORU's forum from a while back. Sounds like a good explanation of the weird pronouncation:
"During one of the Ohio State post-game interviews, Max was asked about the pronunciation of his last name. His explanation was that "the B is silent, and it's a German name". All of us watching looked at each other and thought "what does having German heritage have to do with AB becoming ACE"??? My son (the smart ORU Engineering alum and current OU medical school student) mentioned that the odd pronunciation might be related to the German letter "Eszett" (literally, the combination of the letters s and z), which is the only German letter not in the Latin alphabet. It is written as ß, which looks suspiciously similar to the standard letter B. It is commonly seen in Germany, as the word for street (Straße) includes an Eszett, so most street signs include the unique letter.
So, back to Max... If his family name originally included an Eszett, is it possible that it was "revised" to a B when moving to America - as many foreigners adjusted their names when moving to the new world? And in that manner, the B could be pronounced as the Eszett "sz", which would make the phonetic pronunciation: Asz-mas."
"During one of the Ohio State post-game interviews, Max was asked about the pronunciation of his last name. His explanation was that "the B is silent, and it's a German name". All of us watching looked at each other and thought "what does having German heritage have to do with AB becoming ACE"??? My son (the smart ORU Engineering alum and current OU medical school student) mentioned that the odd pronunciation might be related to the German letter "Eszett" (literally, the combination of the letters s and z), which is the only German letter not in the Latin alphabet. It is written as ß, which looks suspiciously similar to the standard letter B. It is commonly seen in Germany, as the word for street (Straße) includes an Eszett, so most street signs include the unique letter.
So, back to Max... If his family name originally included an Eszett, is it possible that it was "revised" to a B when moving to America - as many foreigners adjusted their names when moving to the new world? And in that manner, the B could be pronounced as the Eszett "sz", which would make the phonetic pronunciation: Asz-mas."
