翡冷翠 is formed through phonetic transliteration of the Italian city name "Firenze", using the characters 翡 (fěi), 冷 (lěng), and 翠 (cuì) to approximate the sounds of "Fi", "ren", and "ze" respectively. This specific rendering was popularized by the poet Xu Zhimo in the early 20th century, and while each character has its own meaning, they function here primarily as sound-based symbols for the foreign name.