Naming
Those Crazy Drug Names
Everyone complains about them. Is there a remedy?
Here are two things people are likely to say when I tell them I create names for a living:
- “Wow, really? Sounds like a lot of fun!”
- “Do you make up those crazy drug names?”
To #1, I reply honestly that, like most professions, name development is often fun and always a lot of work. Playing with language is my favorite occupation; persuading busy, distracted executives to make a decision about a name ranks, shall we say, somewhat lower on my list.
I’m equally honest about #2, which sometimes is phrased more bluntly: “Do you come up with those idiotic drug names with the weird-ass spellings? Xeljanz? Takhzyro? Skyrizi?”
My answer: Yep, those names do seem weird; and nope, I don’t do that.
To be precise: I once — and only once — worked on a pharmaceutical naming project, many years ago. I was hired as a subcontractor, along with several other namers, by a big agency that specialized in drug names. I went in with my usual optimism, but the work was a grind: endless tiny shifts of letters and syllables to meet the extremely exacting requirements of the naming brief. To this day I don’t know whether any of the names on our very long lists…
