Colonel

[Mirage]

Also pretty much any name/word in Chinese. Of course this could merely be a case of not knowing how to properly represent their name in English.

It's pinyin. Chinese sounds using the English alphabet to make it easier to communicate. They may be the same letters, but they aren't the same sounds. C, for example, is pronounced "ts", and Zh is pronounced like a soft "g". It's a completely different language, not just "improper English".

Then why isn't it romanized in a way that makes it sound right?