
Banham avec Ballard: On style and violence (2019) - silt
http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/66/dorrian.php
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behnamoh
Unrelated to the post, but I wonder how Americans pronounce and spell Banham's
name.

Personal experience: My name is Behnam and I've often seen people think it's
"Benham" or even "Brenan". This makes me think maybe it'd be wise to change my
name (either pick an English name, or use Benham instead). I've seen many
asians do this, e.g. Terry Tao, Andrew Ng, etc.

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microcolonel
I'm confused as to what you're saying. Is Banham not just an English name?
English people named after Banham (in Norfolk, where Reyner's hometown,
Norwich, is) have existed for at least 400 years it seems.

Behnam I think I could spell from hearing, and pronounce, but a lot of people
struggle with names in general. English phonology has so much to offer, that a
lot of names can be written relatively faithfully in it; it's certainly a lot
easier than trying to write western names in Japanese, or Mandarin (it's
really not pronounced 亞倫, guys).

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behnamoh
I was curious to see how people pronounce/spell less common names, esp. those
that are not of English origin (such as my name). "Behnam" has an "h" in
there, which most English speakers don't pronounce. Also, the second syllable
should be pronounced like "numb", not "nam". I've been trying to figure out
how to convey these using the English phonology. I came up with a bunch of
ideas like "Behnum", "Beh-Nam", etc. but those seem awkward.

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microcolonel
Yeah, I think probably it's never going to get easier. If you come across
somebody who knows a little about pronouncing Persian names, they'll probably
get it right, but there's only so much people can manage. I doubt most native
Persians would be able to accurately transcribe English and Scottish names
with Farsi rules, unless they had some specific exposure.

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behnamoh
You're right. I think some English names would be hard to be transcribed with
Farsi rules. Although in my experience, most of them are easily pronounced
(with a bit of accent) by native Persian speakers.

