Ibuprofen sounds invented, and it is. The name is a compressed chemistry label, with its pieces shuffled out of order.
The drug's chemical name is 2-(4-isobutylphenyl)propionic acid. Merriam-Webster explains the brand-neutral name as a blend of isobutyl, propionic acid and -fen, an alteration of phenyl. So "i-bu" is isobutyl, "pro" is propionic, and "fen" is phenyl, moved to the end and respelled. Merriam-Webster dates the name to 1967.
Each piece is a small history lesson in chemical naming. Butyl comes from butyric acid, found in rancid butter, from Latin butyrum, "butter." Propionic acid was named from Greek words for "first" and "fat." Phenyl, recorded from 1850, comes from French phényle and names the ring-shaped group derived from benzene.
The drug itself came from the Boots company in Nottingham. In 1953 the pharmacologist Stewart Adams and the chemist John Nicholson began looking for something like aspirin that people with rheumatoid arthritis could take long term. Their team spent years testing compounds. Ibuprofen was first made in December 1961, and a patent followed.
Clinical trials began in Edinburgh in 1966. Ibuprofen went on sale in Britain as the prescription drug Brufen in 1969. It reached the United States in 1974 as Motrin, and over-the-counter sale followed as Nurofen in Britain in 1983.
Adams was his own first patient. The best-known story dates from 1971, when he traveled to Moscow to speak at a pharmacology conference. After vodka at a reception the night before, he woke with a pounding headache and took 600 milligrams. He later called it "testing the drug in anger." Adams told the story himself in later interviews, including one with The Telegraph in 2007.
Brand names like Brufen, Motrin and Nurofen sit on the front of the box. The generic name in the small print still spells out, in code, the molecule's structure.