Abstract
The article addresses the problem of spelling the names of medicines and pharmaceutical products in light of the new Polish orthographic rules, which came into force January 1st, 2026, and introduced new regulations governing the use of capital letters in the spelling of individual names of industrial products. The analysis demonstrates that applying these rules to pharmaceutical names may pose challenges for language users, since the regulation does not rely on a naive categorization of the world but requires the application of criteria that that demand extra-linguistic knowledge of pharmacy as well as familiarity with processes of deonymization of these names. Additional complexities arise when determining their formal status due to overlapping phenomena at the intersection of linguistic usage, law, and marketing, particularly with regard to the relationship between a marconym and a trademark. Further difficulties stem from the functioning of these units both as common and commercial names, as well as from the coexistence of descriptive names and onyms. The article discusses the relationships among the names of active substances, trade names, brand names, and generic names are discussed, highlighting the interpretative issues arising from their use in specific communicative contexts. The examples presented illustrate difficulties involved in determining the correct spelling of both contemporary pharmaceutical names and those of historical relevance. The analysis leads to the conclusion that, rather than reducing the need for careful semantic analysis, the new orthographic regulations may, in many cases, increase the interpretative effort required to determine the correct spelling the of names belonging to this group of industrial products.
Keywords: 2026 Polish orthography reform – names of pharmaceutical products – trade names – chrematonyms – deonymisation – capital and lowercase letters.