Name that…

Did you ever wonder where some products get their names? Other than it looks like one, why should a Brillo pad be called a Brillo pad.

I started thinking about these one day in the shower when I took a close look at the shampoo bottle, proudly proclaiming it is made of five vitamins and oils. Oh, so that’s why, I said to myself. And from there I was off and running.

I’m all knowing when it comes to pharmaceutical brands, they being such a big part of my livelihood. There are many stories of drugs being named after researchers’ wife’s and children. Sometimes a glimpse of what they do or don’t do is hidden in the name. The first commercially available benzodiazepine, chlordiazepoxide was noted to not cause a loss of equilibrium at sun-sedation doses and that led Roche to name its brand of the drug, Librium. When they made it more potent and released diazepoxide a few years later, they capitalized on brand recognition of the “ium” ending, and as a nod to its use as a sedative, started it off with the Latin for “good night” and named it Valium.

But what of the thousands of products out there that seem to be related. Are they? I there a connection between Kleenex, Spandex, Tilex, and Pyrex? No, nor among the other 600 trademarked products needing in EX. It just sounds good.

Indeed, the letter X in a brand name is much sought after, as is Y and Z.  Pfizer pharmaceuticals hit the letter trifecta with its brand of the antibiotic linezolid when they branded it Zyvox.

A popular brand name construct is combining letters with numbers, ala 7Up or in the company name 3M. Sometimes it’s just shorthand as with 3M which started as Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing. Sometimes it means something even if nobody knows what as with 7Up. (The most popular theory is that it is from its original 7 ingredients and the bubbles go up.) Sometimes the alphanumeric text means something and all the world (except me) knows it like that shampoo. Figure out what it is? Yep. Alberto VO5, named for the five vitamins and oils in the formula. Now I just have to figure out who the heck this Alberto guy is.

Happiness experts say there is joy in being content with ourselves and not missing out in what others are doing. We say joy is not being happy we are not missing out on some part of life. We are joyful because we are taking part in it! We talked about that in the most recent Uplift post, Fearlessly Joyful.