The Chinese word "美杜莎" is formed by phonetically transliterating the name "Medusa" from Greek mythology. Each character is chosen to approximate a syllable of the original name: "美" (měi) corresponds to "Me", "杜" (dù) to "du", and "莎" (shā) to "sa", collectively creating the sound "měi dù shā". This method prioritizes auditory similarity over the inherent meanings of the characters.