The "etymology" you speak of (and is often used in a Chinese context) has nothing to do with actual etymology. The origin of characters is barely related at all

The "etymology" you speak of (and is often used in a Chinese context) has nothing to do with actual etymology. The origin of characters is barely related at all to the origins of words. The word 灣 wān (= bay, cove) might be related to 彎 wān (= curve, bend) but the character doesn't tell us that; it's certainly not related to 水 shuǐ (= water) which appears in 灣 as 氵. 灣 wān also provides an excellent example of where the "character etymology" definitely isn't the actual origin of the word. 臺灣 Táiwān (= Taiwan) is made of characters meaning "terrace" and "cove", so you might think aha, Taiwan has a purely Chinese etymology from "Terrace Cove", but in fact it's unrelated: it's from Siraya (an indigenous Taiwanese language) Tay-uan (= sea people).