Levitra

Generally speaking, however, medication names tend towards ambiguity, according to Dr Peter Mansfield, director of Healthy Scepticism, a group campaigning against unethical pharmaceutical marketing.

"They're often made up of fragments of other words and different people come up with different interpretations," he says.

"Advertising [including branding] is like a Rorschach blot [a psychological test involving the interpretation of random ink patterns]; you impose your own meaning and, in particular, your hopes upon it." Mansfield cites the insomnia drug Stilnox as having "connotations of still or quiet nights", while Cogentin, a treatment for Parkinson's disease, sounds like it's "going to sharpen your cognitive faculties".

Meanwhile, the anti-flu drug Relenza sounds like a conflation of "relieve" and "influenza", which is pretty much what it does.

Where do these names come from?

Every drug has three names: its chemical name, usually unpronounceable, which refers to the compound's structure; its non-proprietary generic name, often a contraction of the chemical name; and its brand or proprietary name, the one by which it's sold.

Unlike the first two, the brand name is likely to be catchy and, increasingly, evocative and experiential.

Experiential names imbue products with ...

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