(fallen london stamps by the incalculable relief of googling your chinese OC's name and finding a news article about someone with the exact same name, with the exact characters, confirming that it is indeed a real name that real people use and that you are not doing the name equivalent of getting a Cool Chinese Tattoo that says "bread"
the thing about figuring out a Chinese name as someone who doesn't speak Chinese, who only speaks English and whose social sphere is also mostly English-speakers, is that it's like doing matrix multiplication. if you want the name to be legit and not the equivalent of tattooing "bread" on your OC, you can't just pick one based off of how the Englishified name looks. you might be familiar with the fun fact that Chinese is a tonal language, and that saying the same sound with a different tone will result in a drastically different meaning - for perhaps the most famous example, mā/妈/媽 (mother) and mǎ/马/馬 (horse). names are no exception.
in addition to that, Chinese names are quite purposeful - unless you're a name nerd or an anxious parent-to-be, most English names are just going to be sounds to you. Like, you're probably not going to hear "Alicia" and go "oh, that means 'noble'!" Chinese names, though, are often assembled from word-words, and thus have much more Upfront Meaning, which means that you have to contend with whether some words-in-names have Implications, including Unfortunate Ones (including implications that exist Only In Combination With Certain Other Words (Including The Family Name)) or are just like... That's Not A Word You Use In Names. like how "Mauve" is an actual name, but "Red" is going to make everyone think of the Pokemon character, and "Blue" is out of the question unless you're trans.
this is not even getting into cultural connotations - such as if the name is shared by a historical or literary figure. see this Quora post about the name "Xīfèng" (熙凤) (and ignore the bot answer up top, it's lying to you as usual)
...and on top of that, you still have to contend with how the name looks in English. because unfortunately we still live in a world where people can't be normal about ordinary names and words from other languages
incidentally, I am pretty sure that this is where the "fictives with Asian names shouldn't use them, that's racist!" nonsense comes from. let it be known that I do still disagree with that, very strongly, when it comes to Chinese names. assuming the fictive in question is like, a Genshin Impact character and not a Cho Chang situation, where it's actual media made by Chinese people and not someone's racist idea of what Chinese names sound like, go ahead and use it? it's their damn name?? (do learn how to pronounce it if you can, though - you don't have to get it right, but the effort is appreciated!)
if you're coming up with a name for a headmate* rather than using a fictive's existing name, then I will be a little more puzzled as to why. I will ask you to be considerate of Potential Weird Implications when it comes to the unfortunate history of "it's cool when white people do it but not when people from the actual culture do" - doubly so if the headmate in question was intentionally created to Serve A Purpose (including companionship). still, my inclination is less "don't do that" and more "consider why, and do a proper job of it." do your due research on the aforementioned things, learn how the name is pronounced, and do take the time to familiarize yourself with some other aspects of Chinese culture while you're around. at the very least, your headmate will thank you for not naming them "Bread"!
*or a headmate coming up with a name for yourself, for that matter
edit: forgot to include a resource! this post has some good sites
