The Chinese term 波多黎各 (Bōduōlígè) is a phonetic transcription of "Puerto Rico", formed through a process of transliteration where each character is chosen primarily for its sound rather than its meaning. The characters 波 (bō), 多 (duō), 黎 (lí), and 各 (gè) sequentially approximate the syllables of the English name, creating a recognizable and standardized Chinese equivalent for the foreign place name, as is common practice in rendering non-Chinese proper nouns into the language.