Good observation, Bill D. My sister is a switchboard operator, and she asked my sis-in-law, a teacher of English as a Foreign Language, for hints in dealing with Asian callers who are not good at English yet.
The sis-in-law said that few other languages pile up consonants the way English does. An Asian speaker, confronted with a name like "Strong" for example, heads for the vowel and ends up asking for someone like "Song" or "Ong." This observation has helped my sister at the switchboard.