The word "苏格兰" (Sūgélán) is formed through a process of phonetic translation from the foreign name "Scotland". Each character was chosen primarily for its sound in Mandarin to approximate the syllables of the source word: "苏" (sū) for "Scot", "格" (gé) for the middle consonant cluster, and "兰" (lán) for "land". While the characters individually carry meanings (like "revive", "pattern", and "orchid"), their selection here is not based on semantics but on creating an audibly recognizable equivalent, resulting in a established, fixed transliteration for the geographical name.