Originally Posted by
NA-Flyer
Was he of a german decent by any chance?
He was born in Detroit. His father, Wilhelm Böing, was born in Germany.
Anglicised the name before WW I. And he followed the German custom of changing the "ö" to "oe" *) in non-German languages. Since English speakers tend to simply ignore umlauts, they would have spelled his name Boing.
*) That was the original spelling anyway, the "ö" was introduced as a shorthand for "oe".