How do drugs get their bizarre names?
Tryptyr. Vizz. Enflonsia. Anzupgo.
New drug names make it sound like pharmaceutical companies throw a bunch of syllables into a cement mixer and see what comes out. There’s a lot more to it than that. (Although I did find a fun drug name generator at namegenhub.com – very handy for the novelist who needs a convincing-sounding medication for their plot.)
The four drugs at the top of this article, however, are real. They were all approved by the FDA in 2025 to treat dry eye, age-related far-sightedness, RSV in children, and eczema, respectively. How do the manufacturers and marketing companies come up with such names?
In ancient times, medicines were often named based on their source, function or appearance. For example, opium comes from the Greek word opion, meaning “poppy juice.” Aspirin gets its name from spiraea, the plant that it originally came from.
These days, pharmaceutical companies invest millions to develop new therapies. Once that’s done, they go through another long – and expensive – process to find brand names for their products. And that process is anything but random because they want doctors and patients to associate the name with the drug forever. Viagra is now available as the generic sildenafil, but we still call it Viagra.
Hardly anyone calls the new type 2 diabetes medications semaglutide or GLP-1. You’re more likely to hear Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus.
According to a Cleveland Clinic article on how medicines get their names, the Food and Drug Administration in the U.S. and European Medicines Agency in the E.U. require that a brand drug name doesn’t:
• Look or sound similar to other brand drugs
• Make medical claims, like using the word “rapid” to imply that the drug works faster than others
• Use a generic suffix or too closely resemble the generic drug name
• Promote the drugmaker
If a drug name is rejected, pharmaceutical companies must go back to the drawing board. For example, the antidepressant Brintellix was renamed Trintellix in the U.S. because doctors were confusing it with the blood thinner Brilinta.
Selecting another name means more time and money, which delays the drug’s entry into the market.
Different regulatory environments often result in different names. Acetaminophen is called paracetamol in other countries, and Tylenol is known as Panadol, Doliprane and Calpol in various countries. Good to know if you’re overseas and need pain relief.
Focus groups and other research methods help companies home in on their top choices from among hundreds of choices. It might not always seem like it, but companies try to choose names that are easy to pronounce in different languages. They also make sure that a name doesn’t translate into something offensive in another language.
In addition, they want their drug to have a name that’s easy for you to remember so you can “ask your doctor” (as it says in the TV commercials) or tell your friends about it. Vizz does sound like an eye medication, doesn’t it?
They also want the name to convey different emotions. Names containing hard consonants like X, Z and K often sound powerful and innovative (think Nexxium). Soft consonants create a calming effect, making them more suitable for pain relief or chronic conditions, as in Humira for autoimmune diseases. And some names are designed to evoke improvement or transformation. Tamiflu, for example, associates with flu prevention and treatment.
So here’s a fun exercise: When you see a TV ad for a drug, see if you can figure out why it’s named that. Is it based on what it does, or for a part of the anatomy? Are there particular phonetic clues or consonant sounds that convey an emotion?
It’s a name game, all right – a very expensive one.
• Teri (Dreher) Frykenberg is a registered nurse and board-certified patient advocate. She is the author of several books on advocacy and founder of Nurse Advocate Entrepreneur, which equips medical professionals with the knowledge and skills to start their own advocacy businesses. Contact her at Teri@NurseAdvocateEntrepreneur.com.