:::: Thanks for the information! I had heard the other variations, but didn't know about  ayyaṅkār; is that a legitimate variant, or a mistake in our article ? 
 ::::That aside, I agree that all this detail is unnecessary and distracting in the lede sentence, and we should include it either in a box on the lines of , or add a section on etymology and pronunciation of Iyengar. Would you like to take the lead in writing up the section/box ? (With my kindergarten level of knowledge of Tamil script, I am sure to introduce more error than is typical even for wikipedia.)