The Chinese word 蓝鲸 is formed by combining the character 蓝 (lán), which means "blue", with the character 鲸 (jīng), which means "whale". The first character 蓝 acts as a modifier describing the color attribute, and the second character 鲸 serves as the core noun denoting the animal, resulting in a compound word that literally translates to "blue whale".