The word "汤姆" is formed through a process of phonetic borrowing from English, specifically to transcribe the sound of the foreign name "Tom". It is created by selecting two pre-existing Chinese characters, 汤 (tāng) and 姆 (mǔ), whose pronunciations when combined approximate the English name. The individual meanings of the characters (e.g., 汤 meaning "soup" and 姆 meaning "nurse" or "matron") are entirely disregarded; they serve purely as phonetic symbols to represent the foreign sound within the constraints of the Chinese syllabic system.