Ellen Booraem: Hello. My name is Ellen Booraem. My last name is spelled B-O-O-R-A-E-M. When my family first came to this country in the 1600s, the name was Van Boerum because they were Dutch and they came from a town called Boerum. They spelled it B-O-E-R-U-M, which makes a lot more sense than the way it is now. Apparently, my ancestors started fooling around with the vowels hoping to get people to pronounce the name right. I guess it was supposed to be pronounced Boerum, but they never succeeded and they would be horrified to know that even their descendants pronounce it wrong today. My mother, who gave up a much easier name when she married my father, often said that she wanted to spell it S-M-I-T-H, but that wouldn't be any fun, now would it?