From a doctor’s standpoint, a good drug name needs to be easy to pronounce, easy to write and easy to remember. And of course, without any negative connotations. These requirements become harder to satisfy; and especially when a name should fit several different markets, linguistic difficulties multiply. 

Creating a name for both French and Arabic speaking countries is quite a linguistic challenge, because Arabic language forms words and concepts differently than French. 

Certain sounds exist in Arabic, but not in our phonetic system. For example, Arabic has 2 sounds [d], represented by 2 letters D, 2 sounds and 2 T letters [t] and 2 sounds and 2 S letters [s]… On the other hand, certain sounds and letters exist only in Latin alphabets, and not in Classical Arabic: G, V and P.

Arabic words are formed from triliteral, or sometimes quadriliteral roots, mostly made
of consonants. These « matrices » represent the backbone of a word; the process of suffixation but mostly the process of prefixation and infixation (inserting letters Inside a word) allow to create, through derivation, the diversity of words based on a certain concept.

For example, the root f-t-H would carry the notions of «opening» and «victory». Without any derivations, fataHa means «to open». The first derivation would be to double the central consonant – fattaHa – to create the meaning of «to open/to flourish» (like a flower) or to «stimulate» (appetite). The second derivation – an infixation of an â (long [a]) after the first consonant –, fâtaHa, would create the meaning of «to open oneself to somebody». The derivation tafattaHa (prefixation of ta- and the doubling of the central consonant) would give the meaning of «to flourish», «to grow». infataHa – prefixation of in- – gives, in technical fields, the meaning, of «to unblock ».

In view of the linguistic structure explained above, the experience of our recent drug name creations for Arabic-speaking countries shows us that many Arabic roots can be used as a base for building and sculpting names. We have thus identified and used some Arabic roots euphonic to a French ear, evoking words like woman, fenininity, prevention or well-being. In creating a name for a contraceptive, the name created is evocative of positive meanings for an Arabic speaking woman or a doctor, and euphonic to the French.

The QUENSIS team is composed of high level linguists and consultants who master numerous languages–both dead and living languages, Western or Eastern: Latin, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, but also: Russian, Serbo-Croat, Japanese, Hindi, Sanskrit, Classical Arabic, and numerous Arabic dialects.

Thanks to this human excellence and a breakthrough technology integrating almost limitless lexical databases, QUENSIS is capable of creating brand and drug names for any country or collection of markets in the world. Regardless of the languages explored or the euphonies to be tested, only Quensis has the expert consulting and technological leadership capable of clearing such names that appeal in ever-diverse markets.