Quote Originally Posted by TATY
Can you say Как ты?
Most assuredly you can.

Jared would be spelt Джэрад.
You may say why use Э instead of A? It's because the Э is actually closer to the American English sound man, pan. Russian A is too open for these sounds. E.g. Джарад would aound like Jar-rаd.
I don't agree at all about that. э is a much better transcription of e as in "bed" or "Jared" than the Russian "а", therefore I prefer Джарэд to Джэрад. They will both be wrong, because as you mentioned, the first vowel phoneme will not be rendered correctly, but the former option will be much better.
The Russians have no easy way of producing our "a" in pan and man, but э certainly isn't the solution to that problem. джеред is another option - perhaps you meant that. But no easy answer.