The Chinese word 亚利桑那 is formed via phonetic transcription of the English name "Arizona", with each character representing a syllable: 亚 (yà) approximates "A", 利 (lì) approximates "ri", 桑 (sāng) approximates "san", and 那 (nà) approximates "na", chosen solely for their sound values without regard to the literal meanings of the characters.