I concur with the suggestion to use what the person you are addressing prefers. For example, my given (first) name is 'Paul', but in an Esperanto context I would accept 'Paŭlo' without any problem. My middle name, which I rarely use but is part of my legal identity, is 'Owen', but I would accept an esperanticization (such a word?) as 'Oŭeno'. Yes, yes, I fully know that many esperantists are outraged at the idea of using <ŭ> as a spelling for English /w/, which does not exist as such in E-o, but if we are going by what an individual prefers for personal proper names, I will go with 'Paŭlo Oŭeno X'.

erinja:

opalo:Generally only kings and queens routinely get their names Esperantized. It's just too confusing otherwise.

I would write George Bush and possibly provide a once-off pronunciation guide in a footnote: elparolu: Ĝorĝ Buŝ.

Translators of fiction may choose to Esperantize the names of the main characters to make things easier for readers.

Yes, all of this, for public figures.

For private use, call people what they want to be called, otherwise, if referring perhaps to a non-Esperantist friend, you can choose for yourself whether to Esperantize or not.

The -o endings make it easier to talk about someone without feeling like your grammar ends up weird but this doesn't mean that people automatically add -o to every person's name.

Also - it is very rare for someone to mess with their surname. A few people do it but the vast majority do not. If George Bush were a fluent Esperanto speaker, more than likely he would call himself "Georgo Bush".

Awesome, thanks. Does this also apply to names with non-Esperanto letters, like "Montesquieu", "Karl Marx", and "Ayn Rand"? Also, do you know if there is an Esperanto shortening of "kontraŭ" (the equivalent of the English vs. to versus)?

Roch:Oh, I have been wondering Erinja, not having went at any esperanto gathering, is something hand-written, sometimes happens to use the H-system*? Like for nametag... That would be cool Ghorgh Bush, Ghonatano...

No, that is never done. Hand written text always uses the correct Esperanto letters.

Also, Jonathan is normally Jonatano in Esperanto, so that is more recognizable than Ghonatano in any case. Adding an h rather than the direct letter makes things harder to read, not easier. Even the internet is mostly written with the correct letters nowadays.

Erinja, could you answer my question a few comments up? You seem like the most authoritative source here, so I'd love to get your response if you have the chance. Thanks!

Jonatano:Awesome, thanks. Does this also apply to names with non-Esperanto letters, like "Montesquieu", "Karl Marx", and "Ayn Rand"? Also, do you know if there is an Esperanto shortening of "kontraŭ" (the equivalent of the English vs. to versus)?

Names of public figures could be written with non-Esperanto letters, with a gloss explaining pronunciation. The whole point is that the names don't follow Esperanto pronunciations, so the presence of non-Esperanto letters is fine. For that matter, if this is your actual name, you can still use it, regardless of whether the letters are Esperanto. If you are named Cyrille, no one is forcing you to change your name unless you want to (though you will probably have to tell people how to pronounce it if they don't know).

I'm not aware of a standard abbreviation for kontraŭ. There is a list of some standard abbreviations here, but kontraŭ is a hard one because a simple k is the standard abbreviation for "kaj".

If you were desperate to make your own abbreviation for kontraŭ, kr probably would not intersect with another well-established abbreviation but this isn't a common enough word to abbreviate to have its standard version.

If Don Leo Jonathan is an Esperanto speaker, then we watch what he calls himself and we call him that.

If he is a public figure, then we call him Don Leo Jonathan [Don Lio Ĝonatan], that is, his normal name with no changes (no esperantization for public figures, in almost any case!), plus a gloss to explain pronunciation. It is rare simply to mangle names of public figures to make them fit Esperanto norms. Except popes and kings and queens, as someone already mentioned, because they already frequently have very common European names that already have an Esperanto equivalent. However I can imagine that if you were to talk of King Mswati of Swaziland, you'd write it as Reĝo Mswati [msŭati], since his name is not a European name with a standardized Esperanto form.