Boehm

Boehm is a surname of German origin, commonly written as Boehm or Böhm, with variants such as Bohm and Bohm. The name is derived from Böhm, referring to a person from Bohemia, the historic region that is now part of the Czech Republic. Spelling variants arose from transliteration of the umlaut and migration to non-German-speaking countries; in English-language use, Boehm is a frequent rendering of Böhm.

Theobald Böhm, a 19th-century German instrument maker and musician, developed the Boehm system of keywork and fingering for woodwind instruments. His design, first applied to flutes and later adapted for clarinets, improved intonation, range, and ergonomics and remains the basis of modern Boehm-system instruments.

Notable individuals with the surname include Barry Boehm, an American software engineer and professor known for the Spiral Model of software development and the COCOMO cost estimation model. The surname is widely distributed in German-speaking countries and in the United States due to historical immigration, and it appears across various fields, including science, engineering, and the arts.