I am just getting started with Lojban and so there are still many
things that I do not yet understand so please excuse me if this is an
obvious newbie question. I have not yet seen an answer in any of the
resources that I have encountered.
One of my children has a name that starts with an 'H'. As near as I
can tell, the only use of this sound in Lojban is the apostrophe to
separate two vowels. What, then are the most common approaches for
handling this situation when converting names?
I usually consider the etymology when Lojbanizing names. For example, if the name is 'Hannah' (Hebrew), I would go with {xanat.}, because Lojban {x} is the sound of the initial consonant of the Hebrew word, & because in other Semitic languages, feminine nouns end with a {t} sound. While if the name is 'Helena' (Greek), I would go with {.elenas.}, because the Greek begins with a "rough breathing" (like English 'h') which is no longer pronounced, and an {s} sound marks the nominative singular in many Indo European languages (maybe just for masculine nouns, but what are you gonna do?).
mu'o mi'e komfo,amonan