How about this perspective. Daredevel's idea about spanish gave me an idea about Chinese, one that I am accustomed to, being of Asian-american descent.
Note that I am not saying at all, that this the conclusion to it. I am just drawing more ideas into this discussion, which I'm really finding interesting so far.
We all know names in Chinese written in english are one of the hardest things in the world for most foreigners with their tongues to pronounce. Some of them aren't even phonetically reasonable UNLESS you have a background of chinese yourself, then you can see why it is written the way it is.
When you say some of the following surnames in english:
Wang - this is really supposed to be said as WOH-ONG, not wa-ng they commonly mispronounce in english.
Chang - there is actually no C sound, it's really a Z
Huang - not too sure on this one
Chou - same as chang, Z instead of C. It should phonetically be said like zh-oh
Hsiao (Xiao) - this is pronounced as shi-ow
Hsien - Really no H sound, it's more like Shi-en
Ching - hopefully most people get this right
Le - Some may think this is Li or Lee, but it's actually "luh"
I won't even get started on first names, that's like tier2 that you start to see more errors in.
When I observe non-native foreigners try to pronounce any asian name, they usually get it wrong because they try to pronounce it in the way they see it written to them in english. Ask any guy with a hard to pronounce asian name, I'm sure they will have a story to share with you shaking their heads in the process of storytelling.
Honestly, I already know the legal reasons to why Chinese in English form isn't the most accurate way of saying them phonetically. That is why there is a system tailored specifically for chinese-english language interactions.
This just goes to show that in english, others realize sometimes they mispell what they are saying.