The word 波士顿 is formed through a phonetic borrowing process, where three existing Chinese characters are selected purely for their sound to approximate the pronunciation of the English city name "Boston". The characters 波 (bō), 士 (shì), and 顿 (dùn) are combined to create the sequence "bō-shì-dùn", which mimics the English syllables. While each character individually carries its own meaning (such as "wave", "scholar", and "pause"), in this compound they are used solely for their phonetic value, resulting in a standard, fixed transliteration for the city.