This is completely unrelated, but...

I've always wondered about the spelling and pronunciation of "Nietzsche". Not just the final "e" being constantly pronounced as [i] (it should be a schwa, right?), but...there seem to be too many consonants.

If it's supposed to be pronounced "Neets-shuh", then isn't the "t" unnecessary, since the "z" already sounds like "ts"? And if it's just "Neet-shuh", then isn't the "z" completely useless?

How do you pronounce "Nietzsche", anyway? I assume it's not the way people in America pronounce it. ("Nee-chee")

Where did the name come from?

I had thought it was Slavic in origin, but according to this forum posting it's a regional German name:

The surname "Nietzsche" is an East-Middle German (Thuringia, [Upper] Saxony, Silesia) derivation of the first name "Nikolaus". The letter order "tz-sch" doesn't appear in High German, but is characteristic for some person and place names here.

As for pronunciation, I say "NEET-shuh," but I'd love to hear from a German speaker; spelling, even in German, is not necessarily logical and minimalist.

The author of my Russian Etymological Dictionary (1910-1914) has the arresting name Preobrazhensky = Transfiguration, and I once saw a tv interview with one Tsvetok, a distant relative of El Poldo de la Flora, no doubt.

I heard it pronounced as Nee-shay in that movie, "Anywhere but Here". How's that?

It's pronounced "knee-cha." That's from a Philosophy professor with a doctorate. I've seen it pronounced various ways myself in movies as well. I think the most popular mispronunciation though is "Knee-chee".

Its Ni like knee and tzsche like Che Guevara

No, it's a German name. Final E in German is a schwa. It's NEE-ch' -- or NEE-chuh as others suggest. There are a few provincial dialects in which the final E is pronounced like English EE. My high school German teacher was from one of those places so perhaps yours was too. But in standard German it's a schwa.

NEE-chee is merely non-standard and would be frowned on if uttered by a foreigner outside the localities where it occurs. But NEE-shay and NEE-chay are just plain wrong, made up by some pompous ignoramus. Like the utterly incorrect French J that is suddenly in vogue in American newscasters' pronunciation of Azerbaijan and Beijing.