The word 努尔哈赤 is formed through phonetic transliteration, where each character is chosen solely to approximate the sounds of the Manchu name "Nurhaci": 努 (nǔ) for "Nur", 尔 (ěr) for the second syllable, 哈 (hā) for "ha", and 赤 (chì) for "ci", combined sequentially without semantic consideration.