Specifically, ChAdOx1 is the vector, a platform for making vaccines: there are vaccine candidates using it for TB, MERS, Zika, flu, and a bunch of other things (see here: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=&term=ChAdOx1&cn...)

In more normal times, most people outside of R&D would never encounter the name.

Exciting that they're using it as a platform to develop other vaccines.

But I still maintain the official names are ridiculous. “Vaxzevria” is the trademark used by AstraZeneca in the EU. (As you say, not ChAdOx1.) And yes, the general population end up seeing Vaxzevria, on their vaccine information forms, and online at https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/EPAR/vaxzevria-...

Someone on Twitter says: "Galaxy brain take: Pfizer intentionally picked a terrible & unpronounceable brand name because it wants people to keep calling it "the Pfizer vaccine"". (I personally will just pronounce it as "Moriarty", that being the closest recognizable name.)

That seems....very plausible.

For other drugs, an amazing amount of effort is devoted to finding something that a) sounds "promising" but b) without making legally-untenable promises.

The name `Viagra`, famously, is supposed to evoke ideas of vigor and Niagra (Falls). Pfizer had some trouble with Champix (varenicline), which some regulators thought was too close to "champion", and so was called Chantix in some markets instead.

No, I don't think Comirnaty is any better! I am however relatively partial to Spikevax, aka Moderna: at least Spikevax is easily pronounceable.

I suppose you mean the vaccine names are mainly useful for regulatory purposes, because the general population will continue to name the vaccines after the manufacturer or researchers?

As a native French speaker, I would say Comirnaty is actually easier to pronounce than Spikevax, and I suspect it might be similar in other Romance languages.

Intéressant. Sorry, I was being pretty anglocentric.

Pas de problème ;) Now I'm thinking about it, finding a name that is easily pronounced in many languages is probably a fun but not that trivial task.

CoronaVac (by Sinovac) sounds pretty accent-agnostic.