Russians don’t have a “w” but I’ve seen them fake it with a oo-eh sound. If your name were “Westen” it might get spelled out as oo-ehsten rather than “Vesten.”
Haha, yes I suppose I have noticed that too.
Cymro dych chi?
The point about Cantonese is a good one that I had not considered. What do they say in Cantonese?
Chinese is interesting because the writing is in independent of the pronunciation. This means that you can use the same writing system to communicate even when your spoken languages are mutually unintelligible.
The two big dialects/languages are Mandarin and Cantonese, and the spoken language is pretty much unintelligible although the written language stays pretty much the same. This means that any transliterations of place names would end up sounding completely different when pronounced in Cantonese.
‘Faking it’ is not what I’d call it (approximation is so much nicer) but this is often true (though not always). Still, the point remains that neither ‘Уисконсин’ nor ‘Висконсин’ are ‘Russia’s own name’ (as per the OP) for Wisconsin. It’s a transliteration, not a translation.
Nope–Americanwr sy wedi dysgu Cymraeg, but nothing like a native speaker, though my in-laws are.
My Polish friend told me that bigger cities are often translated, while smaller ones are not. She was referring to the way English handles her country and the surrounding ones, though. Her big examples were the capitals of Poland (Warsaw/Warsawa [pronounced Varshava) and Russia (Moscow/Москва [moskva]), as opposed to the smaller places she grew up in, which I can’t remember off the top of my head.
It’s pronounced “ga lei fuk nei a” in Cantonese. Except for the first syllable, it’s actually somewhat similar to Mandarin in this case.
A good example of a transliteration that doesn’t work in both languages is the Chinese name of Walmart, 沃爾瑪. It’s pronounced “wo er ma” in Mandarin, which is all well and good. However, it’s pronounced “yuk yi ma” in Cantonese, which is not even close.
“Old Gold Mountain” is actually the archaic Chinese name for San Francisco, but not California.
Apparently it once referred to all of western North America.
I remember learning the French names for the Australian states. There seemed to be no logic to it. Some were translated: Australie-Occidentale for Western Australia, Australie-Méridionale for South Australia and Nouvelle-Galles du Sud for New South Wales etc. But others were left in their English forms: Queensland and Victoria.
The supermarket down the road has a bunch of copies of “Гарри Поттер” (Garry Potter) 
A lot of the transliterations I’ve seen of “h” are “г”(“g”), but I think there’s also the occasional “х” used (which is more of a hard h, like “kh”) e.g. the russian wikipedia list of US states lists “Оклахома” for Oklahoma
Juta = Utah
Aidahas = Idaho
Vajomingas = Wyoming
I notice that the Russian wikipediaists often use г for an American English H. For instance the name of the Utah state representative Neal Hendrickson is rendered Нил Хендриксон. I wonder if this is an increasingly common rendering, because when I was there in the 80s and early 90s I would never have rendered an h as an x: the Hoover Institution was always the Гуверовский институт.
Here are all the Japanese transliterations, just for the heck of it. (Spoilered so as not to take up half the page.) Note that a long vowel in Japanese indicates the length of time the vowel is held for, not a pronunciation change as in English.
Alabama: アラバマ Arabama
Alaska: アラスカ Arasuka
Arizona: アリゾナ Arizona
Arkansas: アーカンソー Ākansō
California: カリフォルニア Kariforunia
Colorado: コロラド Kororado
Connecticut: コネチカット Konechikatto
Delaware: デラウェア Derauea
Florida: フロリダ Furorida
Georgia: ジョージア Jyōjia
Hawaii: ハワイ Hawai
Idaho: アイダホ Aidaho
Illinois: イリノイ Irinoi
Indiana: インディアナ Indiana
Iowa: アイオワ Aiowa
Kansas: カンザス Kanzasu
Kentucky: ケンタッキー Kentakkī
Louisiana: ルイジアナ Ruijiana
Maine: メイン Mein
Maryland: メリーランド Merīrando
Massachusetts: マサチューセッツ Masachyūsettsu
Michigan: ミシガン Mishigan
Minnesota: ミネソタ Minesota
Mississippi: ミシシッピ Mishishippi
Missouri: ミズーリ Misūri
Montana: モンタナ Montana
Nebraska: ネブラスカ Neburasuka
Nevada: ネバダ Nebada
New Hampshire: ニューハンプシャー Nyū Hanpushyā
New Jersey: ニュージャージー Nyū Jyājī
New Mexico: ニューメキシコ Nyū Mekishiko
New York: ニューヨーク Nyū Yōku
North Carolina: ノースカロライナ Nōsu Karoraina
North Dakota: ノースダコタ Nōsu Dakota
Ohio: オハイオ Ohaio
Oklahoma: オクラホマ Okurahoma
Oregon: オレゴン Oregon
Pennsylvania: ペンシルベニア Penshirubenia
Rhode Island: ロードアイランド Rōdo Airando
South Carolina: サウスカロライナ Sausu Karoraina
South Dakota: サウスダコタ Sausu Dakota
Tennessee: テネシー Teneshī
Texas: テキサス Tekisasu
Utah: ユタ Yuta
Vermont: バーモント Bāmonto
Virginia: バージニア Bājinia
Washington: ワシントン Washinton
West Virginia: ウェストバージニア Uesuto Bājinia
Wisconsin: ウィスコンシン Uisukonshin
Wyoming: ワイオミング Waiomingu
Actually, I’ve heard that Russians prefer /g/ over /kh/, even when /kh/ is technically more accurate (e.g. coming from other Slavic languages, or Dutch or German) because the /kh/ evokes the association with some swear words (e.g. хуй).
It’s interesting. I had almost always seen Cyrillic “г” used for transliterating initial “h” in English-laguage names (e.g. Гемингуэй = Hemingway), and Cyrillic “x” used for transliterating medial “h” (e.g. Оклахома = Oklahoma). There have been some exceptions, naturally (Огайо = Ohio).
But now, on Russian Wikipedia pages, I see not just Хирохито (Hirohito), but also Хемингуэй for Hemingway. This is very much analogous to the way English speakers transliterate Arabic *qāf *and kāf – sometimes it’s Koran, but a more modern/updated transliteration would be rendered as Qur’an.
Which is a lot like オハヨー (ohayō) – the Japanese for “Good morning”.
Spanish has the peculiarity that a lot of US names are “in Spanish in the original” but may be pronounced differently in Spanish and English (for example Florida, which stresses the first syllable in English but the second one in Spanish). As for translating the “New”, it seems to depend on whether people are familiar with the original place. Nueva Orleans (previously Nueva Barcelona), Nueva York (previously Nuevo Amsterdam), Nuevo Mexico, Nueva Inglaterra, Nueva Escocia… but New Hampshire because, well, most Hispanics who haven’t lived in the UK (and many which have) would have problems finding Hampshire in a map.
it’s not analogous, though, because in English, k and q make the same sound, whereas /g/ and /kh/ in Russian sound completely different, and both sound can only serve as a distant approximation of /h/ in English, so it’s not like one’s more sophisticated.
Maybe things are changing – I’m doing a lot of random searches of Russian Wikipedia (last few minutes: Hyderabad, William Randolph Hearst, Ho Chi Minh City, Lockheed Martin). Cyrillic “X” for English “h” appears to be gaining ground.
Interestingly, “Lockheed Martin” was untransliterated – it was just left in Roman script.
I did turn up “алкогол” (alcohol) and “гексан” (hexane), however.
… analogous in the sense that there’s a choice of two letters in the target language. As you point out, there are also some differences.