[No one is disgraced by the name. About the drug manufacturers' choice of name of their products].

Choosing the "right" trade name for a drug is important for the manufacturer, both because the name identifies the product and because it can create an image which helps the marketing and thus increases the sale of the drug. A name registered as a trade mark is the company's property and cannot be used by others. Choosing a good name from scratch is not easy, but several ground rules exist: Get as close as possible to the non-proprietary (generic) name, the name of the company, the properties of the drug, or a combination of these. Try to have the first letter of the name near the beginning (or the end) of the alphabet. Keep the name short and avoid names that could be difficult to pronounce or may have a bizarre meaning in other languages. In this article, examples of "good" and "bad" drug names are presented. Various aspects of the non-proprietary and chemical names of drugs are also discussed, as well as the risk of confusing different drugs that have names that look alike or sound alike.