Meaning and pronunciation
My name Anirban is a Bengali name, which means a light that shines forever. It sounds a bit like: aw-nee-r-baan. However, as Bengali is not a language with strict intonations, many variations of the pronunciation by non-Bengali speakers still make sense.
Katakana and Bengali
One of the things I am assigned to in Japan is a name written in Katakana: バス オニバン. Note that phonetically, this means the "aw" sound for the first "A" in my given name is now pronounced as "O" (i.e. オ). Also, the "r" in my name is dropped because Japanese cannot pronounce two consonants placed without a vowel sound in between. I ought to remember this because in many cases in Japan, my name is identified using the Katakana characters only where my name in English (or Bengali) will be of no use.
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| | My name in Katakana | My name in Bengali |
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