Foreigners usually get my name wrong when they have it only in writing. If you want to spell it out for Americans to pronounce, it would be approximately Tea-Low (as opposed to Thigh-Low, which is what they tend to say instead). I have actually typed Tea-Low a few times to coax the Mac OS Text-To-Speech to address me properly.

Things are easier with Japanese people, when you write your name in Japanese katakana, which is a system of syllables so that the pronunciation is immediately obvious. Ironically, pronunciation is the easiest and most regular part of Japanese, whereas it must be the most complicated and irregular part of English.

Turns out the literary world has taken to the Tea-Low topic as well:

Thilo had three short triangular clots of hair that hung over his forehead like chopped dreadlocks, forming a dork's crown. He often told his friends, "Don't you evah, evah fahk wid me, did you hear'd me?" His friends were freshmen, members of clubs non-social, lovers of chess and magic, wargames and renaissance fairs. Thilo, a senior, was their king. They respected his crown, even if his nationality and mother tongue remained mysterious. They knew only that Thilo was very pale, that with good reason he had a hairstyle all his own, and that he was much older than them, which conveyed an authority he completely lacked in any other situation.

Odd things happened to Thilo. Something about him caused others to act strangely in his presence, to admit to criminal acts, to test rules and regulations. For example, one day a kid in the seat next to Thilo's lifted his right pant leg, and revealed a knife in his sweatsock. The kid grinned at Thilo.

Paul Toth, You're an American Now

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Update: The Internet is just amazing. Not even five hours after I posted the above, I get the following email:

Greetings:
 
I happened across your blog entry re: my story and the pronunciation of your
name.  My story originated from someone else's account of a high school student
whose name was constantly mispronounced, causing that Thilo endless despair.
Just thought I'd pass that along. 
 
I can relate: Somehow people regularly make "Tooth" of "Toth."
 
Kindly,
 
Paul A. Toth