Having issues with UTF-8 names (Hebrew) in with json_encode($current_user->name)

The name is showing up in the Messenger in Gibberish.

I'm passing a UTF-8 string:

$hebrew_name = urldecode($hebrew_name);

Then in the messanger code, I use it like this:

window.intercomSettings = {

app_id: "kubohuj0",

name: <?php echo json_encode($hebrew_name) ?>, // Full name

email: <?php echo json_encode($username) ?>, // Email address

created_at: "<?php echo strtotime($current_user->created_at) ?>" // Signup date as a Unix timestamp

 };

I tried changing it to

json_encode($name, JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE) ;

but to no avail.

Any ideas?