ISO 1750:2023(E) Pesticides and other agrochemicals — Common names
Pesticide common names are vital for easy and accurate identification of pesticides in trade, registration and legislation, and they are a legal requirement on product labels. They are widely used in extension leaflets for farmers and growers and in scientific and popular publications. Pesticide common names are non-proprietary and are chosen to be short, distinctive and widely-accepted. There are other ways to identify pesticides, but the systematic names that chemists use are rarely short and are not convenient for general use. Likewise, CAS Registry Numbers® and International Chemical Identifiers (InChIs) are not suitable for use by the general public.
Common names must be available for use without any restrictions to identify pesticides and related substances, and so they are formally placed in the public domain by ISO.
Common names have traditionally been published in a printed standard that was supplemented by printed addenda and amendments as new pesticide common names were approved, but this was a time-consuming process and it often took several years for new names to be published.
The agrochemical industry, regulatory bodies, advisory services, information services, publishers and other users of pesticide common names need to be made aware of new names without the delays associated with preparing and publishing conventional ISO documents, so we have moved to a system with annual updates. To make this possible, the Maintenance Agency devised an XML format for the data, replaced most of the contents of ISO 1750:1981 and its 2 addenda and 7 amendments with XML data from the Compendium of Pesticide Common Names, and updated the rest of the old ISO data. The images of structural formulae have been replaced with ones in scaleable SVG format from the Compendium of Pesticide Common Names.
Instead of including the common names and their supporting data within the conventional PDF or printed standards, they are now located in a separate XML data set that is hosted on the ISO website and is available via a link in the Clause 4.1 of the standard. The data set includes the common names plus their systematic names, molecular formulae, InChIs, InChIKeys, CAS Registry Numbers® and notes. Until a new edition is published, the data set will be updated every 12 months to add newly-approved common names and to make any necessary changes to the data.
The XML data set is designed for viewing in web browsers, with the data formatted as HTML tables that also include the images of structural formulae. The layout is responsive, unlike a PDF, and is designed to give the best user experience on all screen sizes. The tables re-size and the text re-flows to fit any size of screen or window, and the structural formulae re-size when necessary. To improve accessibility, the text re-flows when it is enlarged.
The XML data set does not include any indexes, but all web browsers provide ways to search the data, and everything is searchable.
Common names of pesticides are intended to be permanent, so they are never changed and never deleted. ISO 1750 includes the common names of pesticides that have been banned or are no longer in use, so that there will always be a definition available for names found in old literature or on old products.
The system of annual updates of the XML data set and the XSL stylesheet allows us to introduce improvements without needing new editions. For example, XML fields could be added for data in more languages, and the XSL stylesheet could be modified to display the extra data. ISO 1750:2023 included names in English and French. Work is in progress on names in Chinese and Russian. We would like to add names in Arabic and Spanish, to match the languages in which WHO INNs for pharmaceuticals are available.
ISO 765:2016(E/F) Pesticides considered not to require common names
This bilingual (English/French) standard provides a list of pesticide chemicals that do not require recommended common names because they have either existing trivial names or reasonably short and distinctive chemical names.
The supporting data is the same as for ISO 1750 and includes systematic names, structural formulae, molecular formulae, InChIs, InChIKeys, CAS Registry Numbers® and notes.
The Maintenance Agency has prepared an XML data set in which most of the contents of ISO 765:2016 have been replaced with data from the Compendium of Pesticide Common Names, and the rest of the old data has been updated. ISO 765 is going to be withdrawn; its updated data will be merged into a new and enlarged edition of ISO 1750 that is expected to be published in 2027.
Selecting common names for pesticides and other agrochemicals
This free PDF has replaced ISO 257, which needed frequent revisions. It contains principles for creating short, distinctive, easily pronounced common names, which will be common to all languages, as far as is possible. It contains recommended stems for different chemical structures, because common names should reflect any relationship with chemicals of a similar structure. It notes the importance of avoiding confusion between common names and existing names, whether they are other common names, trade names, chemical names or WHO INNs. Recommendations on how to name isomers, salts, esters, etc. are also included.
It also specifies the information that proposers of common names must provide.
You can view or download the latest version of the free PDF here:
Ongoing
Published
- ISO 1750:2023(E) Pesticides and other agrochemicals – Common names
- ISO 765:2016(E/F) Pesticides considered not to require common names