Why do drugs and high tech companies have unpronounceable names

[Bill Dufour]

Have you noticed many new products have made up names that are hard to pronounce. I have seen adds for some company that I think is like net flicks but it is something like roxathemne. They make jokes and teach viewers how to pronounce it. AFAIK it is a made up name not a foreign owned company.
I realize many names are new words so they can be copy writed. Xerox was invented as a name because the inventor felt it was a letter combination not used in any language and thus could be copyrighted in all languages.
Bill D.

[Jim Becker]

In the medication industry, it's made worse by the need for both a generic (official) name and a brand name. The former is based on the chemical formula of the medication and the latter is often something reasonably "catchy". The easier off the tongue nature of the brand name often means it becomes "generic" in use after any initial patent provisions expire and generic production ensues. Tylenol is a good example...much easier to say than Acetaminophen so many folks will just say "Tylenol" when they are looking for an buying the lower priced generic. :)

I actually think that many of the current "brand" names are being generated after the companies scour the music libraries so they can carefully coordinate and license some song that the word for the brand name med fits in perfectly. :D

[Wade Lippman]

They spend lots of money looking for names that aren't in use or similar to other names, and aren't offensive in any language. There isn't much left, so the names get progressively odder.

[Bob Glenn]

They make up names that you can't pronouce, then someone comes along and popularizes an acronym for it. Go figure.

[roger wiegand]

Wade has the answer. Having had the opportunity to name several biotech companies (Cereon, Cantata, Preceres) I can tell you it is not easy to come up with something that both conveys some sense of what the company is about, is vaguely pronounceable, and isn't already in use somewhere for something.

Just call it paracetamol like the rest of the world does if you don't like acetaminophen (to add to the confusion). For me N-acetyl-p-aminophenol is both way easier to remember, much less ambiguous, and actually carries some information.