The onomastics The onomastics Behind Brand NamesBehind Brand Names

Brett W. MillerBrett W. Miller

ENG 213ENG 213

Betsey WheelerBetsey Wheeler

(Secre(Secret)t)

onomastics [anomæstIks] (from the Greek onomastikós – to name)

(n): 1. the study of the origin, history, and use of proper names.

brand [brænd] (from the Old Norse brandr – to burn)

(n): 1. kind, grade, or make, as indicated by a stamp, trademark, or the like

2. a mark made by burning or otherwise, to indicate kind, grade, make, ownership, etc.

ORIGINALLY, BRANDS WERE SIMPLY NAMED AFTER THE

CREATORS OF THE COMPANIES…

(after founder George Westinghouse)

(after founder Henry Ford)

(after founder William E. Boeing)

OR A LOFTY BRAND NAME DENOTING THEIR (AT LEAST FORMER)

MARKET DOMINANCE…

General Motors

United Airlines

United States (U.S.) Steel

BUT TODAY…• Use of Greek or Latin-esque parts of words

may be used to allude to a company or product’s qualities or benefits:

• Accuracy- should probably be a given when making a car (note the measuring caliper in the logo)

• Acuteness? Acuity?• Obvious damage control within this name of cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris’ parent company (“look how altruistic we are”)

FOUR ONOMASTIC METHODS COMPANIES USE TO NAME BRANDS (AND SHAPE OUR

PERCEPTION OF THEIR PRODUCTS)

• ORTHOGRAPHY• PHONEMICS

• ABBREVIATIONS

• ACRONYMS

FOUR onomastic EXAMPLES OF companY Name Brands

Unusual use of final “q” in name – moniker may connote impression of “compact,” “computer,” “compatibility,” “quality”

Lunar (pertaining to moon and nighttime) + Siesta (alluding to rest and relaxation) = ZZZZZZZ Abbreviation of Badische Anilin und Soda Fabriken (Baden Aniline and Soda Factories) – was originally an Baden, Germany-based aniline dye and soda ash producer A weapon named from an enduring juvenile adventure series of books dating back to the early 20th century – name comprised of the first letters of Thomas A. Swift Electric Rifle (although, in the books, Tom’s middle name was never revealed—guess they had to “buy a vowel”…

ORTHOGRAPHY AND PERCEPTION

(OR, HOW TO SPELL A SALE)• Studies conducted by four Michigan State

University researchers showed that brand names beginning with the consonants were most easily remembered

B,C,D,G,K,P,T

• Names beginning with B, C, and S were perceived

by test subjects as simpler:

• Names beginning with X were construed as being

masculine:

• Names beginning with L or V were construed as being feminine:

• Names beginning with Q were thought of by the subjects in the brand perception tests as innovative or “cutting edge”:

ORTHOGRAPHY AND PERCEPTION

(OR, HOW TO SPELL A SALE)

NO MATTER HOW UNUSUAL OR OUTLANDISH THEY LOOK,

AMERICAN BRAND NAMES ALWAYS FOLLOW THE

LINGUISTIC RULES OF ENGLISH:

Zqihfaj

ORIGINS OF BRAND NAMES

• It’s not a cheer! • “Yahoo” (meaning rude or uncouth) first coined by

Gulliver’s Travels author Jonathan Swift • Web portal creators Jerry Yang and David Filo insist

that site so named because they were both “yahoos”

• Name widely understood as acronym for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle”

• Yahoo! still better than original name: “Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web”

ORIGINS OF BRAND NAMES

• It’s not a verb meaning “to gawk”!• Actually intentional misspelling of the word

googol, popularized by mathematician Edward Kasner to describe a very, very large number (10100 or 10 followed by 100 zeroes) — descriptive of the large amount of information indexed by the Web site

• Googol does not linguistically derive from any word—created extemporaneously by Kasner’s nine-year-old nephew

• Google, not Googol? Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin tried, but Silicon Valley engineer Tim Beauchamp beat them to the name googol.com

• Swedish farm boy Ingvar Kamprad “strikes” it big selling matches in village of Agunnaryd

• Business expands to Christmas ornaments, pens and . . . fresh fish(!)

• Forms his own company, IKEA, at age 17• Names company using the initials of his name:

Ingvar Kamprad the name of his family’s farm: Elmtaryd and his native village: Agunnaryd

ORIGINS OF BRAND NAMES

ORIGINS OF BRAND NAMES

• Founded by literary types Gordon Bowker, Jerry Baldwin, and Zev Siegel (Bowker a writer, Baldwin and Siegel, teachers)

• Starbuck, first mate and coffee lover on Ahab’s ship in Melville’s Moby Dick was inspiration for ubiquitous coffeehouse name

• Ahab’s ship’s name was also proposed as a name for the establishment, but a business collaborator countered, “No one’s going to drink a cup of Pequod!”

HIDDEN ONOMASTICS OF PHARMACEUTICALS

• Perhaps not coincidentally, rhymes with “Niagara” – owing to either the romantic connotation of the region or a reference to the expected “high- flow” result of the product

• The initial phonemes /vi/ suggest “vitality,” “vigor” or “vim,” while the remaining portion of the word is phonetically similar to “aggression,” thus equating to force or power

• The brand taken as a whole has no genuine significance, but is loaded with implication

• This drug has a similar /vi/ phonemic component to that of Viagra, only this time appearing in the middle of the word

• Also has an allusion to “levitation,” thus hinting about the drug’s “upstanding” benefits to its male consumers

• Note the highlighted “A”s in the names of these antihypertensive (for treatment of high blood pressure) drugs

• Both contain Angiotensin Antagonists—drugs that interfere with the body’s ability to narrow blood vessels and thus raise blood pressure

HIDDEN ONOMASTICS OF PHARMACEUTICALS

• Note the “mab” suffix at the end of the generic names of these drugs

• Drugs with this suffix are monoclonal antibodies, which are used to treat some cancers and autoimmune disorders by binding to the surfaces of certain cells, thus blocking specific biological processes

AFFIX ANATOMY OF THE mab DRUG CLASS

Infixes used in monoclonal antibody drugs serve to identify two drug action characteristics: one for the origin or source of the antibody, the other for the

antibody’s target ORIGIN / SOURCE

If original antibody only produced in mice (not usually used in humans due to adverse immune response or allergic reaction):

If the antibody originates in humans:

= infix of “o”

= infix of “u”

ORTHOCLONE OKT®3 (muromonab-CD3)

AFFIX ANATOMY OF THE mab DRUG CLASS

DRUG ORIGIN / SOURCE When parts of the animal antibody are

combined with human genetic sequences in an structure area common to both animals (called chimeric”)

= infix of “xi”

When parts of the animal antibody that are combined with human genetic sequences are variable between both animals (called “humanized”)

= infix of “zu”

DRUG TARGET Construction of the infix for the target is usually

comprised of a consonant-vowel-consonant combination

The final consonant is dropped off if the following infix of the origin or source (e.g. -zu- or -ci-)

The target infix is then abbreviated, as in -ci(r)- to denote the circulatory system or -tu(m)- to designate tumors as the intended targets

AFFIX ANATOMY OF THE mab DRUG CLASS

Cancer drug panitumumab + + + pan

iDrug-specific prefix

tum

u mab

Specific body

target (tumor) Monoclonal antibody

Antibody of human origin

DRUG NAMING AND THE UNITED STATES APPROVED NAMES COUNCIL The United States Pharmacopeia’s drug naming unit, the

United States Approved Names Council, approves the generic names of new drugs in their USP Dictionary of USAN and International Nonproprietary Names

New name stems for drugs are created only in cases where an existing stem does not accurately represent the compound, its action, structure, use, or other compelling reason New 2008 stem examples and their descriptions include:

• -clomol for heat-shock protein inducers, bimoclomal type • -luren for inducers of ribosomal readthrough of nonsense

mutation mRNA stop codons

In 2008, 95 new drug names

were adopted by the USAN . . .

• aflibercept  • albaconazole  • aleplasinin  • alogliptin benzoate    • apricoxib  • ataluren  • bafetinib  • bederocin  • blinatumomab  • bupropion hydrobromide  • canakinumab  • carmegliptin  • cetilistat  • cixutumumab  • coleneuramide  • cositecan  • dabigatran  • dabigatran etexilate  • dabigatran etexilate

mesylate• dapagliflozin  • davunetide  • degarelix acetate  • delafloxacin  • delafloxacin meglumine  • denenicokin  • dirucotide  • dirucotide acetate  • droxidopa  • dutogliptin  • dutogliptin tartrate  • efungumab  • elagolix  • elagolix sodium  • elotuzumab  • entinostat  • epetirimod esylate  • esomeprazole potassium  • farletuzumab  • fidaxomicin  • figitumumab

• fosbretabulin disodium  • fostamatinib disodium  • gabapentin enacarbil  • gantenerumab  • hydroxyethyl starch /.  • iclaprim  • iclaprim mesylate  • indeglitazar  • ingenol mebutate  • larazotide  • levomefolate calcium  • levomefolic acid  • linaclotide  • liprotamase   • lonaprisan  • mocetinostat

dihydrobromide  • nabiximols  • naproxcinod  • nomegestrol acetate  • obeticholic acid  • palifosfamide  • palovarotene  • pardoprunox  • pardoprunox

hydrochloride  • pegloticase  • pozanicline  • pozanicline tartrate  • radezolid  • radezolid hydrochloride  • ramucirumab  • remogliflozin etabonate  • retaspimycin  • retaspimycin hydrochloride• serlopitant 

•

• sobetirome  • sofinicline  • sofinicline

benzenesulfonate  • sotrastaurin acetate  • spinosad  • tecovirimat  • telcagepant  • telcagepant potassium  • toceranib  • toceranib phosphate  • tozasertib  • tozasertib lactate  • turofexorate isopropyl  • tylvalosin  • tylvalosin tartrate  • varespladib  • varespladib methyl  • vedolizumab  • velneperit  • voreloxin• zibotentan   

HARMFUL LINGUISTICS: how creative orthography can KILL

Alzheimer’s drug

Antifungal drug

Antihistamine

Pain killer

Diabetes drug

Epilepsy drug

Schizophrenia drug

Antidepressant

OR

Source: http://www.chem.cornell.edu/jn96/images/Top%20200%20Brand%20Name%20Drugs%20by%20Retail%20Dollars%20in%202007.png

Top ten drug onomastics

1. Lipitor2. Nexxium3. Advair Diskus4. Prevacid5. Plavix6. Singulair7. Seroquel8. Effexor XR9. Lexapro

10.Actos

“lipid,” cholesterol“next generation antacid”“advanced airway opener”

(disc shape)“prevents acid”“nixes plaques”“singular” (exclusivity?) and

“air”“quells serotonin”“effective” - XR is eXtended

Release“lexa-a linguistics term

meaning a relation word?” “promotes”

“active” perhaps “glucose?”

THE ONOMASTIC STORIES BEHIND CAR BRANDS

Name derives from the Japanese word for the constellation known in English as the Pleiades, or “the Seven Sisters”

Count the stars in the logo! (Although there are many more stars, these are purportedly the stars most visible by naked eye from Earth)

Represents the company’s formation from the merger of seven separate companies

Named for company co-founder Louis Chevrolet

Chevrolet was a well-known Swiss auto racer in the early 1900s

Originally a separate car make, became part of GM in 1917

THE ONOMASTIC STORIES BEHIND CAR BRANDS

THE ONOMASTIC STORIES BEHIND CAR BRANDS

The name is Latin for “let it be done” (also an English word meaning “an authoritative order or decree”)

Italian auto maker’s name actually derives from the acronym Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino (Italian Automobile Factory of Turin)

Car model Names

Volkswagen Touareg

• German pronunciation is like "too," a quick "ah," then "reg“ [tuərɛg]

• Too hard for English speakers to pronounce (we say [tʊrɛg])

• Named for the Tuareg, a nomadic people of North Africa

Car model Names

Toyota camry•Name is phonetic

compression of kamuri, a Japanese word meaning “crown”

•Not the first of Toyota’s “crowning” achievements:•Toyota Crown•Toyota Tiara•Toyota Corona•Toyota Corolla

Cars named for “wind”

• Volkswagen Scirocco (hot desert wind)• Mercury / Lincoln Zephyr (gentle breeze)• Volkswagen Passat (German for “trade

wind”)• Plymouth Breeze• Dodge Hurricane• Mercury Cyclone• Renault Wind• Nissan Mistral (cold, dry, and often

violent wind in France)

onomastic nightmares on wheels:Car names that shouldn’t have been

• Mazda Laputa – the car’s name, describing its small or “Lilliputian” nature, is, unfortunately, also Spanish for “the whore”

• Mitsubishi Pajero – another disaster en Español, translates to “wanker” or “one who masturbates”

• Buick LaCrosse – slang amongst teenagers in Quebec, see Pajero above

• Opel Ascona – in Spain and Portugal, strong pejorative for the female reproductive anatomy (rhymes with stunt)

• Honda Fitta – in Sweden and Norway, see Ascona above

onomastic nightmares on wheels:Car names that shouldn’t have been

• Daihatsu Charade – defined by the dictionary as “a blatant pretense or deception” – yeah, sounds like a good name for a car. . .

• AMC Gremlin – dictionary definition: a mischievous invisible being, said by airplane pilots in World War II to cause engine trouble and mechanical difficulties – Enough. Said.

• Rolls-Royce Silver Mist – mist is German for dung or manure, but at least it was a Rolls. . . and silver!

• Ford Pinto – In America, means “spotted horse” - in Brazil and Portugal, means “male reproductive anatomy”

How to make a brand name memorable

NOT

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