Talk:Michalka

The pronunciation should be "Mi-hall-ka" as the ch is pronounced with the "c" as silent

But presumably their name is Americanized. Just want to mention that in "fixing" up the IPA, I may have messed up the pronunciation, because it was ambiguous when I got here. kwami 09:00, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Although no relationship to the two sisters, my last name is Michalka and it is pronounced that way. All other Michalkas I have run across have pronounced it the same way, Americanized as we are. Prochaska is a similar surname example where the c is silent. Also, it is a German surname coming from something along the lines of "Michael's son", and not Ukranian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.197.62.17 (talk) 20:47, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You sure it's German? To me, it looks more Polish, Czech, Slovak, or Ukrainian (these languages have a lot of names ending -ki, -ka, -ko) but I could be wrong.
Another thing, a lot of people from these countries migrated to Germany in the 1800s so there are lot of Eastern European names there, some of them later moved to North America so in the immigration records it appears they're of German origin and the names may be confused as German but they're not. I'm not sure whether that's the case for Michalka. Kasnie (talk) 18:33, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Another clue, Michael is always Michal in Czech Republic, Slovakia, and in Poland (in Poland it's written with L with stroke, the stroke is dropped when moving to other countries). Maybe Ukraine as well although I'm less familiar with that country, whereas in German to my knowledge it's always Michael. Prochaska by the way is definitely Czech/Slovak, although the spelling is Germanized. See http://www.ancestry.com/facts/Prochazka-family-history.ashx and http://www.ancestry.com/facts/Prochaska-family-history.ashx Kasnie (talk) 21:34, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]