Have a kid, and you can name it whatever you want. Bill? Jaden? Bugsy? Cleopatra? No one is going to tell you not to, though some may gently (or perhaps more assertively) prod you if you try for something more creative or more associative or more, well, off the mainstream. One wonders if Mrs. Knowles was told, "Well, sure, Beyoncé SOUNDS cool, but won't the other kids make fun of her? Did you consider Belinda? It starts with 'B' also." Mom held her ground, and the rest is history.
Those same concerns don't exist if you name a pet, be it a cat or a goldfish or a lizard. In that case, you can call it anything you want because there's no peer pressure nor downside risk in its development. Whether your pooch is called Spot or Milo or Badger, or your bird is known as Tweety or Buttercup or Hootie, its life will be just fine. No one implies anything from its moniker, and even if they do, who cares?
While the same freedom exists for inanimate objects, there is a little more caution. When naming a hurricane, forecasters steer clear of names from prior killer storms. Consumer products, be they cars or phones, are based mostly on marketing considerations, selecting ID's that elicit positive reactions in the given group. A Ford Mustang sounds like it goes fast, and a Samsung Galaxy sounds like it connects you to the world. That said, if you wanted to call the car the Hypermobile or Sally, or the phone the Whizbanger or Tyrone, no one would stop you. You might be laughed at, but that's your problem.
Then there're drugs. It's especially noticeable these days as we are awash in ads for a whole new class of pharmaceuticals that are aimed at weight loss. Unlike other products, the names of those compounds have to follow very strict guidelines. Two different organizations have to weigh in (no pun intended) and approve the names of the underlying generic - the United States Adopted Names (USAN) Council and the World Health Organization (WHO) INN Programme. The goal is that regardless of where someone is located, patients and health care professionals will be able to safely communicate about the medications in question.
In the process a number of rules must be followed. There must be two syllables in the beginning, so that it's easier to tell one from another. Certain letters have to be avoided, as they don't exist in every alphabet. You also can't use marketing terminology (best, fast, strong) nor medical terms, so that it doesn't imply that a drug is only associated with one condition. All of that cuts out names like SkinnyEstU or Size-4-Ever or WowzaWaist.
Once the cut is made on the generic side, a company can come up with their own brand name to sell under their label. Again they have to factor in intrinsic meaning and linguistics and trademarks. But it's also about market research and focus groups and emotional hooks and connections. They start with hundreds of possibilities and winnow that list down until they have a winner.
With all the restrictions in place, that usually means that the word they come up for a name isn't really a word at all. It's more about onomatopoeia, where the sound of the word itself creates the impression they are trying to achieve. For example, the name of the ED med Viagra is meant to imply virality, while the name of the sleeping pill Restoril is meant to convey restoration.
Which makes you wonder about Ozempic and Saxenda and their brethren. Copyrightable? Sure. Conforms to the rules and regulations? Absolutely. But convey positive associations? Questionable at best. At least to me, Mounjaro brings to mind a very big hill in the Alps, not the image one would think of as positive for one looking to decrease their size. Wegovy sounds like a sixties-era psychedelic compound. Some observers have offered up that one of the newest, Zepbound, sounds like an off-brand bus line, a 70's cover band or even an intergalactic pogo stick.
Shakespeare invented numerous words, such as bedroom, invitation and fashionable, which were likely strange to the locals at first, but eventually become commonplace. In that same vein, thermos, velcro and even google were unique when introduced, but have since won widespread acceptance and gone beyond product names to become part of our everyday speech. Only time will tell if after some future Thanksgiving dinner you say, "Wow, I ate too much. Gotta go on an ozempic tomorrow."
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Marc Wollin of Bedford wonders why people in commercials taking prescriptions seem to be having so much fun. His column appears weekly via email and online at substack.com, http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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