I believe the family was of French Huguenot origin. If he was bilingual, he might have pronounced it fa-nuh-yee among French speakers, and fan-you-uhl among English speakers.
I pronounced it to rhyme with "manual' growing up, heard somewhere that longtime locals properly rhymed it with "flannel", and laughed when Brendan Fraser's character in The Quiet American (2002), purportedly from Boston, pronounced it FAN-WHALE.
Comments
It depends...
I believe the family was of French Huguenot origin. If he was bilingual, he might have pronounced it fa-nuh-yee among French speakers, and fan-you-uhl among English speakers.
My family got it right
I was brought up pronouncing it "fannel" hall, like flannel without the extra l.
We pronounced Filene's correctly, too. "feleens".
Got into a brief debate about this . . .
. . . last weekend. I always pronounced it "Fan-Yull".
How did your family get it
How did your family get it right? Not based on that blog post.
School name
For whatever it's worth, people I know who attended the Peter Faneuil school pronounced it to rhyme with "Samuel"
Faneuil almost rhymed with Samuel
In the mid-80s I went to a high school located in the old Faneuil School on Joy St.
It was pronounced very similarly to Samuel but with a little less emphasis on the U.
Faneuil variants I have known
I pronounced it to rhyme with "manual' growing up, heard somewhere that longtime locals properly rhymed it with "flannel", and laughed when Brendan Fraser's character in The Quiet American (2002), purportedly from Boston, pronounced it FAN-WHALE.
Some park rangers say "Fannel"
A few of the park rangers insist the proper pronunciation is "Fannel." Not sure their historical sources.