Stylistic assessment of a Western first name as the basis for a Chinese name
first name as Chinese name' practice

imo, it’s unacceptable. name is extremely important in chinese culture, a good one helps in every aspects in life.
because, the practice of transliteration one’s first name as chinese full name; most of the time, cannot generate a good enough chinese name.
the proper way is: first, transliterates the initial of a surname, then add characters semantically, to compose a good one (according to chinese culture).
example 1:
Bonnie S. Glaser, her chinese name is 葛來儀.
葛 - in cantonese, it’s got3; which preserve the initial of glaser
儀 - it sounds similar to “ie” in bonnie
來 - derived from the idiom “有鳳來儀” (roughly, a phoenix comes with grace to rest)
bingo, “來儀” as a given name is, strongly connected to phoenix (a female legendary creature), and 葛 is a common chinese surname.
every time i read this name in the news, i would salute to the guy who choose it 
example 2:
the last governor of hong kong, chris pattern 彭定康
彭 - again, in cantonese, paang preserves the initial p of pattern
定 - ding6, derived from t of tern —&gt; d (aspirated alveolar t —-&gt; unaspirated alveolar d)
康 - means “ease; vigour; health; peace; repose; well-being” in chinese
this name is quite good, imo. actually, most chinese name of the governors of hong kong are good, if not excellent.

find it bizarre for someone to just go by his/her first name as a diplomat.

absolutely. any high ranking officials should have a good chinese name, if they need to “deal” with . . . 

some Western names (first + last name) are hard to render in Chinese because of complex consonant clusters

use cantonese, which has more initial, final &amp; tone than mandarin; that it’s more likely you can find a suitable syllable
have fun :)