The Chinese word 林肯 is formed through a process of phonetic borrowing, specifically used for transcribing foreign names into Chinese. It represents the sounds of the English name "Abraham Lincoln", with the character 林 (lín) approximating the "Lin" sound and 肯 (kěn) approximating the "coln" or "ken" sound. The characters were selected from existing Chinese vocabulary primarily for their phonetic similarity to the syllables in the original name, not for their literal meanings (which are "forest" and "agree" respectively). This creates a fixed, two-character unit that functions solely as a proper noun referring to the historical figure.