erinja:I would never pronounce Vilius as "viljus" though; Latin would have taught me to pronounce the i and the u separately, like in "filius" (definitely not pronounced "filjus")

Would it matter so much though? In Lithuanian spelling, sure, there's an i and an j and they have different pronunciations, but in Latin you've got an i with two pronunciations (i and j). It wouldn't surprise me if [filius] and [filjus] were alternative pronunciations of the same thing, like [da:ns], [dæ:ns], [da:nts] and [dæ:nts] in Australian English (for dance) (I don't know if any other dialect has the same range of pronunciations for the same word being quite so evenly distributed all over the entire country).

EDIT: After reading up on it, I see that it was formal custom to pronounce it "filius", and that only plebs and the like said "filjus", which eventually became the default in the vulgar latin period. Sorry.

I often found that Asian people choosing English names ended up with unusual names, often because they were trying to pick something that sounded a little like their real name

I've found the opposite to be honest. It may be because of Christian influence from Hong Kong though for many cases that I've found, but for those who aren't from immigrant families (who I've found generally have a fairly average name or a name from their parents language), I've found there to be a rather even split between those who prefer their normal names, those given English names from the start (this actually seems to have occurred in Indonesia, with Chinese Indonesians choosing English names so their Chinese heritage (which had imperialist/communist/immigration-flood connotations) wouldn't be as obvious), and those who choose a really average name (nothing like Isaiah or Siobhan or the like, more things like Kevin, Joshua, Michael, two syllable simple names with fairly tame spelling).

Wow. I though this place was dead so I continued my Mi estas Komencanto lessons. Looks like it has thrived. okay so what I'm getting from this is there are roughly three types of Esperanto names.
1. Just say your English name "James"
2. Just say your English name with "-o" at the end "James-o"
3. Go full out Esperanto with spelling and everything. "Ĝajmes" Tell me if I did that right becuase I know I probably didn't.

losklan:Wow. I though this place was dead so I continued my Mi estas Komencanto lessons. Looks like it has thrived. okay so what I'm getting from this is there are roughly three types of Esperanto names.
1. Just say your English name "James"
2. Just say your English name with "-o" at the end "James-o"
3. Go full out Esperanto with spelling and everything. "Ĝajmes" Tell me if I did that right becuase I know I probably didn't.

Ĝajmes would be pronounced "jighmess" if that's what you were intending, which brings up the way certain sounds are esperanto-ised
3.a, you can "transliterate" into EO, so if your name was "Wayne", it'd be "Ŭejno"
3.b you can convert the name into EO using EO pronunciations etc, so instead of "Ŭejno" you'd do "Vajno" (since ai/aj often goes to "aj" in EO and "w" often goes to "v", so you copy that convention)
3.c you can mix it up, use an international variant and do the previous two to it, or whatever

But your condensed version is essentially Esperanto naming as anyone ever really needs without turning it into a science

As for site activity, it can be a little quiet, only before erupting into an endless pile of discussion. I'm not of any help

It would never be "James-o"

It would be:
James
Ĝejms
Ĝejmso
Jakobo <- this is the Esperanto translation of this name. Biblical names and names common internationally often already have an accepted Esperanto form. (James happens to come from the same root as Jacob, so as far as Esperanto is concerned, they are the same name)

losklan:how can I say my name in Esperanto. Also let this be a forum for other people to pronounce their names as well.

Hi Jeffry and others,

There is also an older and longer Lernu thread discussing Esperanto Names, Esperanto translations of names, writing/transliterating names into Esperanto, and generally "what should I call myself in Esperanto?". It may be helpful to a lot of you. It also has discussions of various names (Troy, Laura, Lauren, Bradley, Andrew, Christian, Sarah, Scott, Craig, Cliff, Eric, Paul, Erin, Jen/Jennifer, Mariah, Adam), so you may find a discussion about the various options for your very name:

How to translate my name into Esperanto

ceigered:Vilius, I hope you don't mind me asking, but I got curious reading your post - are "vilnius" and "viljus" both forms of your name (e.g. grammatical case/pet names), or just mispronunciations (e.g. for me tristian and christen)?

Vilnius is a capital of Lithuania. I guess people just think something like "Oh that Lithuanian guy, what was his name again?.. Something with 'vil'.. Must be Vilnius then."
Russian speakers tend to pronounce it Viljus. It's quite close to the original pronunciation, just in Lithuanian the 'i' is inaudible, it just makes the 'u' softer (or whatever that's called by linguists).