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I'm confused whether it is normally appropriate to use On-readings or Kun-
readings when dealing with people's names; I'm fine when its just two
character names; I just make a logical deduction in my head to how to say
their name; but when I try to pronounce names with 3 kanji together, I'm
completely lost.

I'll bring in examples at a later time, this computer can't easily type kanji.
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2012-05-15T16:43:02.230
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readings names
Which readings would you use to pronounce people's names?
I don't think there is a "normally" appropriate way. My personal philosophy is
never assume you can read someone's name.

I suppose last names are easier to make a correct (educated) guess. It seems
like they more often use kun-yomi. But they could be on-yomi, or other,
lesser-used kun-yomi. I have two friends whose last names are the kanji `金城`.
However, one of them is `かねしろ` and the other is `きんじょう`. `吉田` I've seen as
both `よしだ` and `きちだ`.

First names are a whole other story. From what I've heard and researched, it
seems that Japanese people are allowed to basically associate any kanji they
want with any reading they want. Kind of like how it's trendy these days to
make up your own spellings for English names ('Lynzee', 'Linzy', Davyd',
'Markis', etc.) So your friend `良` could be the `よし` or `りょう`, but he could be
something completely off-the-wall like `ちから` or `あきら`. Or `真` could be `ま`,
`まこと`, `しん`, `のぶ`, or some other, random reading.

Never assume you can read someone's name. That is why when you fill out
paperwork (application forms, official documents, etc.), they make you fill
out the furigana for your kanji.
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Istrasci's answer is basically right and deserving of the green check, but I
thought it worth adding a little more dimension, which is to answer a question
implied by yours, which is, "how do Japanese people approach the problem?"
_(Not to mention that Stack Exchange considers a healthy site one that has
more than one answer to each question...)_

There is no particularly reliable system for determining what reading to use
for a person's name. However, there are a lot of very common readings
associated with the most frequent names. As one friend described it to me, in
a sense, people in Japan have a memorized list of the most common readings
that they will use as their first guess.

`田中` is most likely to be `たなか`, not `だなか` or `たうち`, or other possibilities,
for no other reason other than it's the usual reading.

If you look at a lot of people's name cards, they will often have furigana
over their names, either because it's a common kanji with an unusual reading,
or a kanji that is so unusual that they don't expect most people to know it.
It's an indication of how Japanese don't expect anyone to be able to determine
a reading by another other method other than simply being informed of it.

People born and raised in Japan simply have the benefit of familiarity. As
someone who is not native to Japan but have lived here a long time, I've built
up my own list of assumed readings, though of course it's not as reliable as
the natives.

Ultimately, it's not something you need to really set out to solve. The longer
you deal in Japanese, you'll naturally just become familiar with the common
readings. And no one is surprised or offended should you ever have to ask for
a reading.
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I once sat with two senior members of staff of a small but highly prestigious
Japanese university while we went through the staff list of the institution
looking for people who might be interested in taking up a fellowship at a
British university. Between them they read out all the names - about 400. They
had both taught at the university for over twenty years and were personally
acquainted with a good proportion of the staff members. They were not quite
sure of the pronunciations of, I'd say, 5-10% of the family names and were
uncertain of the pronunciations of maybe 25-30% of the given names - even
those of people they knew. The fact is, you can't be absolutely sure of the
pronunciation of a Japanese person's name unless you have heard it from their
own lips or are in possession of a meishi with furigana. I think this is just
something the Japanese live with - it doesn't bother them until they need for
some reason to be sure.
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