I have trouble with reflux, so my doctor put me on AciPhex. It's a good drug. Does the trick. But come on - didn't anyone in the pharmaceutical company's trade name department bother to sound out the name before moving forward? It sounds like a category at the Oscars of Porn ("And the award for Best AciPhex goes to ...").

I could understand if AciPhex were the brand name chosen for the evil drug that patients are forced to ingest the night before a colonoscopy, but according to the Stanford Medicine Magazine, "The FDA prohibits trade names associated with the product's intended use and will not approve names that imply efficacy."

So if I'm translating that right, trade names can't imply any kind of a promise. They must be a meaningless, made-up word that's still powerful enough to entice people into hurrying to their doctor to ask if this medication is right for them.

But those in charge of choosing drug names clearly know what they're doing. They understand how words and languages work and recognize the prefixes and stems they have to avoid (like "brev," "vel," "mal" or "mor") because those imply other things (brevity, velocity, bad and death).

According to Bill Trombetta, professor of pharmaceutical marketing at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, the average cost of developing a new drug trade name is between $500,000 and $2.5 million, on average. Since the FDA rejects about one-third of all proposed trade names, Big Pharma takes much into consideration before selecting a name. (Apparently, sounding the drug name out loud isn't one of those things.)

Drug companies understand the way customers think when they're in pain or depressed or fighting a chronic condition, how they'll cling to the vaguest of promises, so they work hard to find a name that hints at what the consumer will get by taking their drug. Consider names like Wellbutrin (If I take this, I'll be well!) and Claritin (Hey, I'll bet that will make my sinuses clear! I don't know why I think that, but ...).

I'm not saying these medicines don't do exactly what they're saying they do, but the names hint at effectiveness in a sneaky, sort of backhanded way.

My favorite drug name these days is Abilify. It sounds like it was influenced by a 4-year-old. I can picture a few pharmaceutical bigwigs straining for inspiration when a preschooler walks in, points to a pill and says, "What does that do?"

"Well, punkin," says one, "it makes people feel better. It makes them able to get through the day."

"Oh, it abilifies them!" says the kid.

And then there are the drug names, like Trexamet and Imatrex, that are so similar I wonder if those handsomely paid pharm folks didn't simply agree on what letters they'd use, then tossed them in the air and used them in the order they landed.

Usually, though, when I run across some of the newer drug names, the images conjured by those names aren't even remotely pharmaceutical. For instance, to me, Lexapro sounds like the expensive car of a golf instructor. Lunesta is really the name of the warm-up band for Nirvana. Concerta is where Lunesta and Nirvana perform. Simcor is clearly a descendant of Conan the Barbarian. And Avelox calls to mind a Brit offering fish.

Personally, I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of one particular new drug to the market. I don't even know what it does, but as soon as Damitol gets FDA approval, I'm off to the doctor to see if it's right for me.

Reach Karin Fuller at karinful...@cnpapers.com.