Ken,
From my experience, Russian transcription of names is often improvised on the spot by the guy making the transcription, based on his knowledge/theory regarding the way to pronounce it. You have the advantage of being English: it’s pretty well understood your name is spoken as Daffy more than anything else, so it’s written like that. A literal letter-for-letter transcription rather than a sound-for-letter transcription would have made your Russian friends call you Ken Doofey, and that sounds a bit odd. Daffy looks a bit odd, but it definately sounds right.
You could try to get your next visa trying the ‘u’ in your name with r the ’61’-letter, that funny “uwy”-sounding vowel. There is something to say for that as well, but it would look a bit odd in Russian. Re-transcribing that would make you Ken Dyffi, i’m not sure if you’d like that but at least you would get the ’61’ in your name which i think would be pretty cool.
Being Dutch myself, i’ve had my family name written down (and pronounced) in a number of ways, and i am pretty sure there are FSB-files on two different guys, one Arthur Khyoobers (Kh-Yu-B-E-R-S) and one Arthur Gubers. (G-U-B-E-R-S). It often comes down on what they think sounds best, or which transcription i pick myself 🙂 They always like my first name though, it has been called an original Armenian, Azerbaidzhani, Georgian, Cossack and Krim Tatar name so far :confused:
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