哈根达斯 is formed through phonetic transliteration, where each character is chosen solely for its sound to approximate the English brand name "Häagen-Dazs": 哈 (hā) corresponds to "Ha", 根 (gēn) to "gen", 达 (dá) to "da", and 斯 (sī) to "s", resulting in a sequence that mimics the original pronunciation without conveying meaningful semantic content from the characters themselves.