NYT:
A pattern is seen by John Algeo, professor of English at the University of Georgia. ''The German names are usually pronounced with an eye sound. Most of the Jewish names have had the American influence of the ee sound, as in the words weird or receive , particularly that ei after the letter c .'' Professor Algeo notes that, in Yiddish, a sound change occurred, with the ei pronounced as a long a , as in stain , but changed in American-influenced Yiddish to ee . ''The ending of stein , pronounced steen ,'' he concludes, ''reflects an American influence.''From this, we can formulate Stein's Rule: Although names ending in stein can be pronounced either stein or steen , names consisting exclusively of Stein are pronounced stine . (In the rare case of a person named Stein refusing to go along with the crowd, this is changed to ''Steen's Rule.'')