The Chinese word 伊娃 (Yīwá) is a phonetically formed transliteration, specifically created to approximate the sound of the foreign name "Eva" or "Ewa". It is constructed using characters chosen primarily for their pronunciation (伊 = yī, 娃 = wá) rather than their literal meanings ("he/she" and "baby/child", respectively). This follows the standard Chinese practice of representing foreign names by combining common, often gender-implied characters into a new, fixed term that sounds familiar to native speakers of the original language.