Rous

[bdmayes]

Can anyone tell how the Suffolk surname ROUS is pronounced please?

[KGarrad]

Sir Stanley Rous (Ex FA & FIFA) was pronounced to rhyme with house and mouse!

[bdmayes]

Thanks for that.

I vaguely remember that many years ago at Suffolk Record I was told that Rous was pronounced locally as Rose and I am trying to get confirmation of that.   

[CarolA3]

I lived in Suffolk for 30 years, and one neighbour was a farmer called Rous.  KG has it right - Rous rhymes with house/mouse.

Carol

[bdmayes]

Thanks Carol

[Jebber]

With names I don't think you can say that any pronunciation is correct, it is personal to the people concerned. My own maiden name is pronounced differently depending on which line we are descended from, although the spelling is exactly the same in both.

Jebber

[Greensleeves]

When I lived in Ipswich I worked with a guy by the name of Rouse; as others have already said, it rhymes with house/mouse!  I have never ever come across it being pronounced 'Rose' and such a pronunciation wouldn't roll comfortably off the tongue of anyone with a Suffolk or Ipswich accent, I suspect.  It is interesting from PR entries that in the past the Christian name, Rose, was usually written phonetically as 'Roose', which fits in nicely with the Suffolk accent!

[smudwhisk]

An interchangeable variation of Rous was Rowse.  I've two separate lines of Rous/Rowse, one from Suffolk and the other from Berkshire but ended up in Essex in the early 1600s.  Roose does sometime appear in the parish registers as a variation for it too.