The word "耶鲁" is formed through a process of phonetic borrowing, specifically to transcribe the sound of the English name "Yale". The two characters, 耶 (yē) and 鲁 (lǔ), were selected not for their individual meanings, but because their combined pronunciation closely approximates the English name. This is a standard method in Chinese for creating names for foreign people, places, and institutions, where the original semantic meaning of the characters is disregarded in favor of achieving an accurate auditory match.