How to pronounce Nostr

Nostr is most commonly pronounced "NOH ster" (/ˈnoʊ.stər/). This is one of several readings in active use; the developer community hasn't converged on a single answer.

Decentralized social protocol; the name is an acronym for 'Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays' — so it has no vowel and no official spoken form. Two camps: (1) NOH-ster with a long o like 'nose' (matching the 'Notes...' expansion), and (2) NOSS-ter with the short o of 'ostrich'. The ostrich reading is widespread enough that Nostr users nickname themselves 'nostriches', strong community evidence for the short-o variant. Wikipedia's Talk page logs both variants (nōstər, nôstər); creator fiatjaf has explicitly told people to 'invent your own way', so there is no creator decree and it is genuinely contested. Stress on the first syllable either way. (Other heard-in-the-wild forms include No-stir and Naw-ster.)

Alternate readings you might hear:

• "NOSS ter (as in ostrich)" /ˈnɒ.stər/

Source: Wikipedia — Talk:Nostr (Pronunciation section documents the long-o vs ostrich split)

Pronouncing project and product names correctly avoids the small but persistent friction of being gently corrected during standups, conference Q&As, and team calls. Hearing the word a few times locks in the right reading better than reading IPA ever will. Pronounce is a community-maintained dictionary — every entry tagged with a confidence level and (where possible) a citable source.