> That "v" is puzzling, all right, but there seems to be a community of
> people who transliterate Chinese that way, using "v" for a "u" with an
> umlaut. *

There is no "V" in pinyin. But we use it anyway, just because there's
no ü on the keyboard. It just makes typing simpler and faster.
so nü instead becomes nv and lü instead becomes lv - and anyway, the
endpoint is to produce the correct character, so most people don't
care.
If you typed nv or lv, most Chinese would understand - if they're not
that dumb, that is. Primary school kids learn pinyin as they learn to
read, but by
middle school it's not really needed anymore, a lot of pinyin is
forgotten already.