how do they decide the name and generic name of medications?
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The “retail” names of the medications are decided largely by the marketing department. Few of the aspects (amongst many others) they consider while “designing” the name are –
a. Active Ingredient / Chemical name
b. Ailment applicable for
c. Marketability of the name (ease of usage by the target audience)
d. Meaning of the word being used to signify some advantage / benefit to the consumer
e. Violation of existing trademarks / tradenames
f. Company’s naming practice (some standard way of naming the drugs by that company which creates some sort of a recognition / trademark).
So the marketing department may end up naming a simple painkiller / anti-inflammatory drug like Paracetamol or Acetaminophen using any one or many aspects of the above. Check out this link – [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracetamol_brand_names](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracetamol_brand_names) and you will be surprised that some names sound quite “out of the box” and some are easily traceable to above rules.
When chemists name chemicals it is not as much a name as a description of it using Greek words. This is also why some chemicals can have multiple names as there are multiple ways of describing a chemical. The problem with these names is that they can not be trademarked because it is just a description of the chemical. They might also not be as easy to market. So drug companies go to their marketing department and ask them to come up with a better name. It may sometimes be similar to the chemical name but does not have to be. The designers in the marketing department need to come up with a name which sound good and distinctive to the group of people they try to market towards.
Generic names are sometimes based on their chemical structure or similarities.
The medicine pseudofed is very much like the drug ephedrine but it’s not exactly the the same. So its Psudo “not real” ephedrine. You may see it as Sudafed.
IUPAC nomenclature are the standards for naming chemical substances. Tylenol, for example, comes from the IUPAC name N-ace**tyl**-para-aminoph**enol**
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