The Chinese word 克拉克 is formed by phonetically transliterating a foreign name, such as "Clark" from English, into characters that approximate its sounds: 克 (kè) for the initial "Cl" sound, 拉 (lā) for the middle "la" syllable, and 克 (kè) again for the final "rk" or "k" sound, creating a pronunciation that mirrors the original.