Talk:Viagra

व्याघ्रः ?
Does anybody know if the name has to do with Sanskrit व्याघ्रः ? Thanks. --82.198.250.69 10:57, 10 February 2010 (UTC)
 * The word for tiger in Sanskrit (व्याघ्रः, vyāghraḥ), Hindi (व्याघ्र, vyāghra) and some other Indian languages is very similar to the word Viagra. Long ago I was told that was the origin of the name of the drug because of the strength associated with the feline but I have never found reliable proof of it. Does anybody know if the similarity is just a mere coincidence or not? Thanks. --82.198.250.69 10:57, 10 February 2010 (UTC) --82.198.250.69 10:41, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Viagra is a brand name, so they chose how they wanted to name it. So they certainly could have looked to Sanskrit, but I'd like to see some evidence first. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:38, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
 * According to several dictionaries from Oxford, the name is a blend of virility + Niagara. --Vahagn Petrosyan 11:48, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Then the link to Sanskrit does not seem to do with the origin of the name of the drug. Just a coincidence and nothing more. Many thanks, Vahagn Petrosyan. --82.198.250.6 10:08, 13 February 2010 (UTC)
 * According to the OED online, it seems the virility + Niagara link has been refuted. Vyāghraḥ there is listed as at least possible.  Who knows? 68.53.228.79 06:18, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Note that the Sanskrit vyAghra means 'who tears apart' says http://judithweingarten.blogspot.com/2007/10/how-tiger-and-tigris-got-their-names.html

Well, if you look in spokensanskrit.de, vyagra in Sanskrit means:

व्यग्र vyagra adj. engrossed, excited, agitated

I think there should be no doubt about the reason this name was chosen :-)

Of course you can consider also vyaghra, which means tiger, but there is an additional "h" which is absent in the brand name viagra.


 * Looking at the full range of translations in spokensanskrit.org (spokensanskrit.de is a redirect to a website, asien.net, that doesn't seem to have a dictionary) and sanskritdictionary.com, the more usual meanings of the adjective are more like 'bewildered, confused, distraught, in great anxiety; alarmed, frightened; distracted, inattentive; revolving, in motion, tottering, unsteady, restless; exposed to dangers; intent (on)'. That doesn't fit that well.
 * Of course, who knows what the marketing person who we suspect consulted a Sanskrit dictionary might have thought, but "there should be no doubt" is certainly an exaggeration. It's more likely that the marketing person came across the word for 'tiger' than some obscure adjective.
 * Also, the fact that the h is missing means nothing at all; it's usual to simplify foreign words when used as trademarks or names, so that people are less confused about how to pronounce them. The y was also replaced by a i under either hypothesis. Of course there's also sensational spelling as a motivation to retain unusual spellings, as in Qashqai, but in that case it was apparently seen as not too confusing, while the gh in Viaghra would make people wonder how to pronounce it. Germans who try to pronounce vyāghra generally come up with something like Viagra anyway, being unable to pronounce [ɡʱ].
 * In sum, I'm not at all convinced that vyagra is a more likely source (of inspiration) than vyāghra. (FWIW, this reddit comment suggests that the name Viagra might have been inspired by a basic position in the Kama Sutra, which was named after the tiger.)
 * Of course, it's also possible that either resemblance is a pure coincidence, compare this post.
 * As for "OED online" above, does this refer to the Oxford Etymological Dictionary? Unfortunately it's behind a paywall; it would have been better to quote it literally so we can see what it says – I'm not sure how you can refute such a link, unless some relevant person comes out and flat-out denies that's the source of the name. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 06:25, 31 May 2020 (UTC)


 * I'm incredibly confused why the etymology here includes Sanskrit with no reference or citation to support it. FWIW, I've viewed the OED.com entry for Viagra and it says, "A phonetic similarity to Sanskrit... words seem[s] unlikely to have influenced the formation." OED lists the etymology as unknown. (I won't quote the full entry due to copyright.) According to this Pfizer blog post "What's in a Brand Name?", "Viagra... elicits vitality and vigor." It points out that linguistic checks are taken to ensure appeal in a global market, so it is probable that a similarity to Sanskrit words was noted, but that is not an etymological relationship. (I came here wondering if there was a relationship to the Romance word verga, Latin virga, or even obsolete English verge, which seems much more obvious to me!) I suspect the ultimate answer to this etymological question is that there is none: someone (or something) put together a list of words made up of random letters and a marketing team liked this one best. The burden should lie on those who want to include the etymology to prove an etymological relationship exists, not on those who wish to exclude it to disprove one. From the available evidence, there does not appear to be a likely etymological relationship to any Sanskrit word and that mention should be removed so as not to perpetuate doubtful information. Helixer (talk) 02:55, 30 July 2020 (UTC)