Naming

Those Crazy Drug Names

Everyone complains about them. Is there a remedy?

What to name the drug? Image by Towfiqu Barbhuiya via Unsplash

Here are two things people are likely to say when I tell them I create names for a living:

1. “Wow, really? Sounds like a lot of fun!”
2. “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…