A New Yorker explained to me just this week that because a sub sandwich is called a ‘Hero’, that gyros is pronounced JEye-Ro to avoid confusion.
Has anyone had a gyro in Greece? I spent quite a bit of time in Athens in the 1980s and don’t recall hearing the word there.
Shwarma.
"Hero"s are heroes because that was an extension of the gyro idea – meat with salad wrapped in bread. My speculation would be that if you did a map of where that sort of sandwich is called a hero (rather than a submarine, a hoagie, a grinder), it would more or less correspond to the areas where sandwich shops tended to be owned by people from the eastern Mediterranean.
I often more or less split the difference – gyeero – in order to be understood; if I just say “heero” vendors look at me blankly. (None of the people selling them here is Greek.) Mostly, I think they are called “jeye-ro” on the street.
I’ve never been in Greece, so I have no idea what they are called there. I first encountered them in the only Greek diner in my hometown in the early 1970s, and then a lot in NYC in the mid-70s. They certainly weren’t ubiquitous elsewhere at the time. I always thought that “gyro” referred to the rotisserie that used to be used to cook the massive beef/lamb sausage that would get sliced for the sandwich. But now I almost never see the rotisserie, and you can get chicken gyros or fish gyros.
We have a Greek community in my city that puts on a Greek food festival every year. They pronounce it “yeer-o” and, being Greek, I’m going to assume they know what they’re saying.
Glad to know finally how to pronounce it. LOL @JHL since our son spent a year in Jordan we tend to call them schwarma too. Also I usually buy them from the Halal guy carts.
I love the comments.
I appreciate the comments about differentiating between hero and gyro. D lives on the east coast and I live in the Midwest.
Maybe we are both right 
I love middle eastern food and miss it so much now that I live in a rural area of Michigan.
@moooop Yes, I have had gyros in Greece. I can’t for the life of me remember how it was pronounced. Not sure we actually learned because, as you probably are aware, tourists are not in any way required or even encouraged to speak a word of Greek in Greece. Lol. Or, maybe it was just a long time ago and I unlearned how to say “gyro” when I got back to the States. In any event, gyros here don’t hold a candle to the gyros you can get on the street in Greece. In fact, I was just thinking yesterday I should open my own gyro stand.
I’ve been saying it wrong all this time. Glad I know now!
This is among my most favorite CC threads. Proof we can discuss anything. 
I take mine with extra tzatziki on the side for dipping. Maybe a whole other thread on how to pronounce "tzatziki ".
“What is the plural?”
Plural of gyros would be gyroi.
It’s the same as with kudos - another Greek word that people sometimes wrongly singularize to “kudo.” Kudos is already singular, meaning “praise.” Plural of kudos is kudoi.
Well in my town I can call it anything I want since my family is the only Greek-American family around but my first generation Greek husband and his family and friends have always called it “yeer-o” so we go with that.
And I call gyros a “doner.”
Actually, how do you pronounce “döner”? I have never been sure about that, and I don’t think I have ever heard anyone say it (at least anyone likely to know how to say it correctly). Would it be pronounced differently in Istanbul vs. Berlin?
Year-o here (CA). This reminds me of a twitter thread I saw the other night… Kenji Lopez-Alt who wrote a book called the Food Lab and has a restaurant in my area started a thread asking people to comment on what they call a pizza with only tomato sauce and cheese, and also to put in their location. That was interesting… I didn’t realize that was a regional thing as well. (If you are curious… in most of the US it’s a cheese pizza. In the greater NY region it’s a plain pie. In some places outside of the US it’s a margherita pizza although I think they are wrong because margherita has basil and tomato slices, although that might be because they don’t normally do anything as plain as just cheese ).
I can’t speak for Istanbul, but in Germany, it’s pronounced DOO-ner, and it’s ever-so-slightly different than a gyro.
I’ve always pronounced it (and heard it pronounced) doh-nair in Turkey.
My husband just orders “the usual” and it all magically appears with extra “however you pronounce it” sauce. Yum.
Love our Greek restaurant here but the Athens gyros I can still taste. Super yum.
Just head on down to Dearborn for some of the best ME food anywhere. Or are you way up in the UP, @deb922?