initialism for names starting with a digraph

Question

What is the rule of initialism for names starting with digraph that is usually considered as a single letter?

For instance, some non-Latin single letter transcribes to a digraph (e.g., Russian: Yu in Юрий->Yuri, Chinese: Zh in Zhang, etc.). Should I use the first letter or the whole string corresponding the single letter?

Answer 1

Generally the initialism will use single initials, even if that initial represents a different sound.

However, if the foreign language has a different rule, then one might borrow the abbreviated form from that language. If you choose to do so, then it's a matter of the rules of that language, not of English.