I have a meeting coming up with a person of Jewish descent whose name is Ilan. We’ve only communicated via email to this point. I’m not 100% sure how to pronounce his name. Anyone have a certain answer on this?
I would lean toward ‘ee un’, but I’d hate to look like an idiot.
Stupid post deleted. Edit to ask: why would the [L] be silent? What language does he / she speak? (Hebrew, English, Yiddish?) What’s the last name (which would help with a fraction of the ancestral ethnicity that might have supplied the name)?
This guy pronounces his name e-lon.
http://video.bravotv.com/player/?id=37593
Of course, you could always just ask him, I’m sure you wouldn’t be the first person to do so
He speaks English. The nature of our meeting (job interview) and the level and type of job I’m seeking would dictate that I should just ‘know’ how to pronounce his name.
If nothing else, I can resort to the old shake his hand and say my name first…
I used to work with an Ilan, he was born in Israel and spoke Hebrew as his first language, English as a second language.
He pronounced it in a way that sounded to my ears like “EE-lahn”, as did all our co-workers and I. He never corrected anyone’s pronunciation.
Ilan is a common name in the Hebrew language. It’s pronounced “ee-lahn”.
It rhymes (almost 
) with the english words “sea lion” or “bee line”
Or the respectful “Mr. —” followed by his “Please, call me Ilan.”
Thanks for the help!
Like pretty much all modern Israeli names*, Ilan (which I would pronounce as ee-LAHN; the accent in Hebrew is almost always on the last syllable) is nature based name, btw. It means “tree”. I picked the feminine version, Ilana, for my Hebrew name.
*I’ve read that Israelis’ names makes them sound like American Indians in old Westerns, which cracked me up when I realized how accurate it was. A perfectly ordinary name in Israel would be something like “Zev Ben-Dov” which means “Wolf Son of Bear”. Common girl names are Yael (fawn), Aviva (spring), Keren (ray of light), Tamar (date), Shaked (almond), etc. and so on. Hell, take the silliest sounding hippie name in English, translate it into Hebrew, and it’s perfectly reasonable.
That explains Wolf Blitzer, I guess.