The Chinese word "堂吉诃德" is formed through phonetic transcription of the Spanish name "Don Quixote", where each character is selected solely for its sound in Mandarin: "堂" (táng) approximates "Don", "吉" (jí) approximates "Qui", and "诃德" (hē dé) approximates "xote", with the characters' inherent meanings being irrelevant to the translation.