I read a piece of news today that CCTV urged Mainlanders discreetly choose an English first name if they wanted to, for most English names have their special and traditional meaning, and some non-traditional ones even indistinctly contain some sex insinuation.  In fact, all you have to do is to consult the appendix of a good English-Chinese dictionary and in there you will almost always find what is most suitable to you. 

I've never named myself an English first name in my life before, nor will I ever.  Except in rare cases, I've never call my friends or my colleagues their English name; rather, I would like to call them by their Chinese first names directly if those names comprise two characters.  Of course I would address my bosses their titles directly or with salutations like "Sir or Madam", "Mr. or Ms." in writing.   

Unless extreme necessary, my suggestion is not to adopt an English first name.  Under Wade-Thomas system, some Chinese characters are hard to be correctly pronounced in English, but under Pingyin the disvantage has been greatly improved.  Nevertheless, a netizen who responded the news said that the character "蝶" is "DIE" under Pingyin, so the English name of that late movie star "胡蝶" will be "HU DIE", and it looks kind of weird.  So a lady with single Chinese first name "蝶" had better adopt an English first name if she studies or works in English-speaking countries.  Interesting.