Phonetic transliteration of "Don Quixote":
堂 (Don, Spanish honorific) +
吉 (-qui-) +
诃 (-xo-) +
德 (-te). The Cervantes novel (1605/1615) was first translated into Chinese in 1922 by Lin Shu and Chen Jialin.
堂吉诃德式 (Don-Quixote-style) is now a Chinese idiom for futile, idealistic crusades - the same English-language metaphor of "tilting at windmills."