Don't you find that those of us with English as our mother-tongue have a strong tendency to be lazy and/or unadventurous with unfamiliar foreign names?
I, for one, find it bordering on the insulting, that so many of us absolutely refuse to attempt personal names with (to our eyes) strange spellings.
A friend of mine in my student days (only fifteen years ago) was called "Ickie" by all of his contemporaries (he didn't like it, but put up with it) because they wouldn't attempt to say "Iftekhar". It is not a difficult word to pronounce - although when his family came to visit I realised that my own pronunciation of it had been less than perfect. But Iftekhar, himself, was always pleased that I at least made the attempt.
I have friends with Polish and Hungarian names, both of whom suffer in similar ways. "Jakomivcz" looks strange, sure, but it is actually very easy to say, and the person who bears it - proudly - is always very happy to explain how it should be pronounced.
Why does this rudeness continue, I wonder, in this age of increasing international contact?
