With the ninth debate wrapped up and a flood of advertising well underway, anyone tracking the Democratic race for president is likely familiar with the names of all the major candidates. But pronouncing those names is a different matter. And an unscientific sample on the streets of Boston found the name “Buttigieg” still stumped many.

“You know, whenever I say this my husband corrects me,” said a woman who identified herself only as Lynn, “ Bootyegg?”

Boston University student Caleb Brownell gave it a shot like a game show contestant.

“Bootyegg, Bootyegg, that’s what I’m goin’ with. Butteegh,” he said.

Jevon Oliver had a particular approach.

“I have to say his full name,” Oliver said. “Bootijeg, Bootijeh, Bootijeg. Final answer.”

President Trump has made hay of stumbling over Buttigieg’s name, and that was motivation for a voter like Alaskan Terry Stage-Harvey.

“I practiced,” Stage-Harvey said, “I saw Trump trying to pronounce it and went to practice.”

How to pronounce Klobuchar had many puzzling over which syllable to stress, and though “Steyer” rhymes with “fire” — some said “Stayer” like “player.” Still, Buttigieg was by far the toughest for this random sample.

“It’s not so much that it’s hard to say, it’s that it’s hard to know how to say it, the way it’s spelled,” said Boston University Professor of Phonetics Tyler Perrachione. “The 'u' makes a lot of different sounds, the 'g', you usually think of as a 'guh' so when we hear it as Buttigieg, it’s not the first thing we think of when we see it written.”

Mayor Pete came up with a sticker to help people pronounce his name. It spells out the three syllables of his name: “Boot Edge Edge”.

Perrachione wasn’t convinced that made pronouncing the mayor’s name much easier.

“I think it’s harder when you think of his name as three other words,” Perrachione said.

“When you try to say those words together you put a little hiccup sound in between them, like when you’re saying, 'uh oh' and then it’s just hard to say that fast. “Boot Edge Edge is not the same as Buttigieg,” he said, placing an accent on the last syllable.

Opinions were mixed on whether an easy name gave a candidate an advantage. But for Boston University international relations and journalism student Brianna Frost, it was an emphatic “no.”

“And if it does, I don’t think it should,” Frost said.

“It’s easier to remember things we hear a lot more often,” said Perrachione.“Some of these names we’ve heard for many years now.”

So, the real edge may just be familiarity. A WGBH News reporter stopped a young woman to show her a name with a perfect storm of consonants.

“Carl Yastrzemski,” she said without missing a beat, “I’m from Boston.”

Some names just have that home field advantage. Here’s what happened when the website Frenchly roamed the street of Paris and asked people to say “Massachusetts”.

As the French might say, “c’est la vie.”