Dustin Cohen

Why did you change your name?

Because Dustin sounds ridiculous in Hebrew. The closest you can get with Hebrew pronunciation is 'Dasteen'. I was sick of spelling it four times everytime someone had to write it down. I was sick of hearing who Dustin Hoffman is. I was sick of hearing that dusty means covered in dust. I was sick of sticking out as The Immigrant in the room, complete with wacko, unpronouncable name.

So what did you change it to? Why that name?

My name is Dotan Cohen. It is phoneticaly similar to Dusty, yet pronouncable in Hebrew, English, Russian, Arabic, and just about any other tongue. It is a Biblical name, the name of a valley south of today's Afula.

How is Dotan pronounced?

Like most words in Hebrew, Dotan is seperated into equal-lenth syllables. This makes it sound choppy: do-tan. 'Do' rhymes with 'no' and 'tan' rhymes with 'gone'. Try saying 'No-gone' a few times. There is no 'W' after the 'O', and no 'I' after the 'A', so don't stick them in there. Sometimes it is written in English (and Arabic) as Dothan, because the letter Tav was pronounced differently in ancient Hebrew than it is today. Today is is 'T', then it was 'TH'.

Allright, so how is Cohen pronounced?

'Cohen' has an 'H' in there for a reason, so don't skip it. 'Ko-hen', not 'Ko-en'.