The Chinese word "盖茨" (Gàicí) is a phonetic transliteration formed to approximate the sound of the English surname "Gates," most famously associated with Bill Gates. It is created by selecting two existing Chinese characters that, when combined, produce a pronunciation close to the original name, with "盖" (Gài) matching the "Gate" sound and "茨" (cí) approximating the "s" sound, despite each character carrying its own unrelated literal meanings (e.g., 盖 can mean "to cover" and 茨 can mean "thatch"). This is a standard method in Chinese for representing foreign proper nouns, where meaning is subordinated to sound.