FDA is issuing this guidance to help sponsors of human nonprescription drug products develop proprietary names2 16 for those products. This guidance describes best practices to help minimize proprietary name-related medication errors and otherwise avoid adoption of proprietary names that contribute to violations of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) and its implementing regulations. It also describes the framework FDA uses in evaluating proposed proprietary names that is available to sponsors to use for nonprescription drug products before a product bearing that proprietary name is marketed. This guidance does not address the designation of established names or proper names.