The Chinese word 俄勒冈 is formed through phonetic transliteration, where each character is chosen solely for its sound to approximate the English name "Oregon". The character 俄 (é) represents the "O" sound, 勒 (lè) represents the "le" sound, and 冈 (gāng) represents the "gon" sound, resulting in a sequential combination that mimics the pronunciation without conveying inherent meaning from the characters themselves.