In 1955, the family moved to Roosevelt, New York, on Long Island, where Stern attended Washington-Rose Elementary School followed by Roosevelt Junior-Senior High School. Stern described his older sister Ellen as the "complete opposite" of himself and "very quiet".
He later worked as a radio engineer at WHOM in Manhattan and as a co-owner and operator at Aura Recording Inc., a Manhattan recording studio where cartoons and commercials were cut. Army on Long Island and in California during the war. Ray was an office clerk in New York City before she became a homemaker and later took up work as an inhalation therapist. Stern's parents are Jewish, and their families are from Poland and Austria-Hungary. Howard Allan Stern was born on January 12, 1954, the second child of Ben and Ray ( née Schiffman) Stern, in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens in New York City.