Lens names: How the heck do they come up with these things?

[Ole]

... they are descriptive names, not contrived propriety names.

Eh???

[Seele]

Say, "Periskop" refers to two element symmetrical, "Aplanat" means without distortion, etc. Same goes for other makers such as Dallmeyer: "Rapid Landscape", "Rapid Rectilinear", "Patent Portrait" etc. We are talking about contrived names which can be registered, and "Anastigmat" is descriptive, therefore Zeiss felt the need to invent the name "Protar" which started this whole lens-naming business.

[Ole]

"Periskop" refers to a two-element symmetrical lens, because that is the name Steinheil used for his symmetrical two-element lens.

"Aplanat"? There's obviously someththing about "plan" or flat in there, but Aplanat is not explained by that. The a- suffix usually means "not-", so it's a "not-flat-thingy"? "Without distortion" is what Dallmeyer decided on in naming the Rapid Rectilinear as opposed to the previous Rectilinear, which was not at all rapid.

"Antiplanet" descriptive? Certainly no more than "Protar"! "Proto-" as in first, original; Prot-A(nastigmat)-R(it's German; it would be pronounced and misspelled with the R if it wasn't there).

[Shmoo]

For some reason, to me lens names and the names of drugs sound similar. I can easily imagine putting a 100mm Lipitor on one of my cameras.

Since Lipitor comes in 10 mg to 40 mg quantities, would that make it a zoom lens?