pronunciation - Is there any convention for pronouncing proper nouns?

Is there any convention as to how proper nouns with origins outside English should be pronounced? I have heard claims to the effect that "a proper noun can be pronounced however you wish"; is that correct?

I work in an international environment, and it is rather common for me to have colleagues with foreign names. Actually, I'm not a native English speaker either. I go by the rule: "pronounce as it would be pronounced in its original context or language".

A few examples:

1. 
   

   The letter J is pronounced very differently in English, Spanish, or Dutch. For example my Spanish friends use ja ja to denote laughing in instant messages; the Dutch pronounce ij like the vowel sound in hay (e.g. [rij] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rij).

   
   


2. 
   

   The vowel sound represented by oe in English is pronounced as in toe, but it is often used to approximate the German ӧ sound (e.g. Schrӧdinger). In Dutch, this same combination of letters represents a vowel sound similar to the English word loop.

   
   


3. 
   

   Sometimes it is not even possible to accurately represent a sound in English, instead it is replaced by some approximation. As examples you could consider many of the Hindi or Bengali names (or names from any other Indian languages for that matter).

   
   

I found this question earlier, but I think it does not answer my question as it seems to address how English names are to be pronounced by non-native English speakers.

Edit: To clarify some of the doubts expressed in the comments; I am primarily interested in personal names although a more generic guideline would be helpful. I'm an aspiring Physicist, and I often encounter standardised terminology with non-English origins.

Answer

It's not entirely clear what you are interested in.

With personal names (first and last name/surname), you pronounce it the way that person does. That's why you have to listen carefully when they introduce themselves. There's a lot of variation there. For example, I've met women whose name is TAmara (on the 1st syllable) and whose name is taMAra (on the 2nd syllable).

As for other proper nouns, such as place names and what not, there are dictionaries for that. The general rule is to try to get as close as possible to the original (foreign) pronunciation, applying rules of English phonetics.