The Chinese word "伯恩" is a phonetic transcription formed to approximate the sound of a foreign name, most commonly the Swiss capital "Bern" or the surname "Byrne." It is constructed by selecting two pre-existing Chinese characters (伯, *bó*, meaning "elder" or "earl," and 恩, *ēn*, meaning "kindness" or "grace") whose combined pronunciation in Mandarin closely matches the target foreign syllable. This process, known as transliteration, prioritizes sound over the original meanings of the individual characters, which are semantically irrelevant in this context, resulting in a dedicated phonetic label for the foreign referent.