Impress business contacts by learning these common Persian names.

Pronouncing Persian names

Imagine you're doing business with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, or maybe you're visiting some Iranian friends for dinner. You wouldn't want to make them feel like their Persian names are burdens. It's especially important to be prepared when pronouncing people's names.As we've noted time and again, names matter to people, regardless of where they live. People hang up, tune out, and lose motivation and respect because of mispronunciation. More importantly, with people moving all over the world, it's vital to know the basics.

Persian is one of the oldest languages still spoken today.

130 million people speak Persian (or Farsi/Dari) around the world, and many other modern languages also have their roots in the language. Interestingly, modern Persian also has commonalities with French – for example, you could say "Mersi" to express gratitude in Iran as well.To help you out with the basics for Persian names, we've compiled some of the most common first names out there, via The Namestork. By taking the time to go through the difficult names, you'll get a better understanding of the language. Because of that, you'll be equipped to pronounce many Persian names.

The names:

• Abbas
• Abdollah
• Abolfazl
• Afshin
• Ahmad
• Akbar
• Alireza
• Amin
• Amir
• Arash
• Asghar
• Babak
• Bahman
• Bahram
• Behnam
• Behrouz
• Behzad
• Bijan
• Dariush
• Ebrahim
• Ehsan
• Faramarz
• Farhad
• Fariborz
• Farshad
• Farshid
• Farzad
• Fatemeh
• Habib
• Hadi
• Hamed
• Hamid
• Hassan
• Homa
• Homayoun
• Hossein
• Iman
• Iraj
• Jafar
• Jahangir
• Jalal
• Jamshid
• Javad
• Kamal
• Kamran
• Karim
• Kaveh
• Kazem
• Leila
• Mahmoud
• Majid
• Manouchehr
• Mansour
• Maryam
• Marzieh
• Masoud
• Maziar
• Mehdi
• Mehran
• Mehrdad
• Milad
• Mohsen
• Mojtaba
• Morteza
• Mostafa
• Mousa
• Nader
• Naser
• Nasser
• Nima
• Omid
• Parviz
• Pejman
• Peyman
• Rahim
• Ramin
• Reza
• Sadegh
• Sadeq
• Saeed
• Saeid
• Saman
• Seyed
• Shahab
• Shahin
• Shahla
• Shahram
• Siamak
• Siavash
• Sohrab
• Vahid
• Yahya
• Yousef
• Zahra

To wrap things up, we'll remind you of the importance of pronouncing names right, especially with many successful Iranian leaders in tech and other industries. This list will equip you with the basics. Now, you'll be able to flow from dinners to cocktails, and even next year's celebrations for Nowruz (the Persian new year). Get these Persian names right, and get started connecting!