Typescript: Type ‘string | undefined’ is not assignable to type ‘string’

When I make any property of an interface optional, and while assigning its member to some other variable like this:

interface Person {
  name?: string,
  age?: string,
  gender?: string,
  occupation?: string,
}

function getPerson() {
  let person = <Person>{name:"John"};
  return person;
}

let person: Person = getPerson();
let name1: string = person.name; // <<< Error here 

I get an error like the following:

TS2322: Type 'string | undefined' is not assignable to type 'string'.
Type 'undefined' is not assignable to type 'string'.

How do I get around this error?