Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What the hell is a Rumpelein?
A: It’s a Bavarian name. No one is really sure what it means.
Q: How do you pronounce it?
A: I pronounce it rum’-puh-line, as close to the original as you can come without rolling your Rs or learning the ü sound.
Q: How many Rumpeleins are there?
A: There are currently three of us in the United States: Joseph, born 1940 (my father), John (that’s me), and Eileen, my wife. We are the ones that live on the West Coast. There was also a Pennsylvania/NJ branch that seems to have died out.
Q: Are you the Rumpelein that I knew at Stony Brook / some tech company / a certain government agency?
A: Yes. You can drop me a line at PO Box 843 / Edmonds WA 98020.
Q: My last name is Ruempelein or Rümpelein; are we related?
A: Almost certainly. Rümpelein was the original spelling of my family name, but our umlauts were confiscated at Ellis Island in 1925. Very dangerous, umlauts.