Phage Name Check Calculator

Abedon, Stephen T.

🔬 Phage Name Check Calculator

Check Whether Your Proposed Phage Name Is Already in Use

by Stephen T. Abedon Ph.D. (abedon.1@osu.edu)

phage.org | phage-therapy.org | biologyaspoetry.org | abedon.phage.org | google scholar

Version 2026.04.07

Jump to: 🔍 Name Search | 📖 Naming Guide | 📚 Background & References | 🧮 More Calculators

Why check a phage name? It isn't cool to name your phage with a name that's already been taken. This tool checks whether your proposed phage name has prior use — searching Google, Google Scholar, Google Books, PubMed, Europe PMC, bioRxiv, NCBI Nucleotide, NCBI Taxonomy, and Bacteriophage Names 2000. The Naming Guide tab covers phage naming conventions.

To cite this tool: Abedon, S.T. (2026). Phage Name Check. namecheck.phage.org

✉️ Contact: namecheck@phage.org

Check a Phage Name

How to use: Enter your proposed phage name below and click any search button. Qualified searches use prefixes such as "phage [name]", "bacteriophage [name]", and "bacterial virus [name]" to increase specificity; an optional toggle adds "archaeal virus [name]" for those naming archaeal viruses. Unqualified searches use the quoted name alone for a broader check. bioRxiv is searched with three separate buttons, one per qualifier, due to that site's search syntax.

Phage name:

Qualified searches — phage name with qualifier (more stringent)

Searches for "phage [name]" OR "bacteriophage [name]" OR "bacterial virus [name]". Also include "archaeal virus [name]"

bioRxiv qualified searches — one button per phrase

bioRxiv's search syntax requires separate searches per phrase. Click each to check all three qualifiers.

Unqualified searches — phage name without qualifier (less stringent)

Searches the bare name; also includes Bacteriophage Names 2000 and PhagesDB.

PhagesDB.org domain search

Google search restricted to the PhagesDB.org domain — useful for SEA-PHAGES and student-characterized phages.

⚠️ Remember: If you succeed in locating prior use of a phage name — do not reuse it! Unique phage names are essential for clear communication in the scientific literature.

Guidance on Naming Bacteriophages

The following guidance is drawn from published recommendations in the phage literature. Adhering to these conventions helps ensure that phage names remain unique, searchable, and unambiguous in the scientific record. For guidance on how to name phages, see Adriaenssens & Brister (2017) and Kropinski, Prangishvili & Lavigne (2009).

General Principles

Choose a name that is not already in use — that is the primary purpose of this tool.
Keep names short, memorable, and easy to type.
Avoid names that are excessively generic (e.g., Phage1) or that could apply to many organisms.
Avoid Greek letters in the name itself; instead use their Latin equivalents (e.g., phi for φ, psi for ψ). Greek letters create search ambiguity and typographic difficulties.
Avoid names that could be confused with host strain designations or other biological entities.

ICTV and Formal Taxonomy

For phages intended for formal taxonomic classification by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV), refer to the ICTV Code of Virus Classification and Nomenclature, as well as the guidance of Adriaenssens & Brister (2017) regarding species demarcation criteria and exemplar genome selection.

SEA-PHAGES and Student Phage Discovery

If your phage was discovered through the SEA-PHAGES program, also consult the PhagesDB.org database, which maintains a registry of student-discovered phages from many host genera. Use the PhagesDB domain search on the Name Search tab — this is relevant for any phage that might appear in PhagesDB, not just Mycobacterium phages.

Checking for Prior Use — Step by Step

Start with a qualified Google search — the quickest first screen across the entire web, including lab pages, course sites, and informal databases. Note that Google results will include many irrelevant pages and a clean result is not a definitive clearance.
Run a qualified Scholar search — the most stringent check of the peer-reviewed and grey literature.
Run a qualified PubMed search to check the biomedical literature specifically.
Run a qualified Europe PMC search to catch preprints and journals outside PubMed's scope.
Run the three bioRxiv buttons ("phage [name]", "bacteriophage [name]", "bacterial virus [name]") to catch biology preprints — bioRxiv requires a separate search per phrase.
Run a qualified NCBI Nucleotide search — many phages are deposited in GenBank before a paper appears.
Run a qualified NCBI Taxonomy search to check formally registered organism names.
Run an unqualified Names 2000 search to check the historical phage name list.
Run a PhagesDB domain search to check the SEA-PHAGES registry for any host genus.
If your virus infects Archaea, note that all qualified searches already include "archaeal virus [name]" in their OR query.
If your proposed name contains a Greek letter, repeat the above with the Latin equivalent (e.g., phi for φ).

Background

This tool originated as an extension of Bacteriophage Names 2000, a resource compiled by Hans-Wolfgang Ackermann and implemented online by Stephen T. Abedon, cataloguing electron micrographically characterized bacteriophages. This updated version improves the interface, adds step-by-step guidance, and incorporates additional search targets.

The searches offered here are not infallible: a name might be in use without appearing prominently in any of the searched databases, and search results may include false positives. Nevertheless, a clear search hit is a strong indication that the name is already taken.

For the history of phage nomenclature and the rationale for standardizing phage names, see the references below.

References

For how to name and classify phages:
Adriaenssens, E.M. and Brister, J.R. (2017). Viruses 9:70. 10.3390/v9040070
Kropinski, A.M., Prangishvili, D., and Lavigne, R. (2009). Archives of Virology 154:1141–1150. 10.1111/j.1462-2920.2009.01970.x
For archaeal virus nomenclature:
Abedon, S.T. and Murray, K.L. (2013). Archaea 2013:251245. 10.1155/2013/251245
Bacteriophage Names 2000 — compiled by Hans-Wolfgang Ackermann; implemented by S.T. Abedon:
https://phage.org/names/2000/
Europe PMC — preprints and broad biomedical literature:
https://europepmc.org/
bioRxiv — biology preprint server:
https://www.biorxiv.org/
NCBI Nucleotide (GenBank) — deposited phage sequences:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/
NCBI Taxonomy — formally registered organism names:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/taxonomy/
PhagesDB — SEA-PHAGES phage registry:
https://phagesdb.org/
ICTV — International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses:
https://ictv.global/

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