Edgar Boyko was born in Vienna, Austria, on October 19, 1918 to Myron David, an eye doctor, and Florence Boyko, an opera singer. He attended the University of Vienna, but after the German annexation of Austria in 1938, he moved to Scotland. Boyko completed a degree in chemistry at St. Andrews University where he married his high school girlfriend Blanka Kohn. In 1939, the couple emigrated to the United States, where Boyko worked several jobs before receiving a law degree from the University of Maryland in 1945.