What is the collective term for ironically cruel medical impediment names?

Some nouns used in medicine ironically contain the letter that is difficult for the sufferer to say, or difficult to deal with:

  • Lisp ('s')
  • Rhotacism ('r')
  • Blaesitas ('b')
  • Dyslexia (difficult to spell)
  • Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia (fear of long words is a long word)
  • Aibohphobia (fear of palindromes)
  • Lamdacism ('l')
  • Stammer/stutter (hard consonants easier to stumble over)

The closest I found was 'jocular terms', but this seems a bit too cruel. How did they come by these names? Is there a collective term that isn't so cruel?

I've looked at this ESE question and this reddit post hoping for an answer to this, but it didn't cover the collective term and more pointed out the cruel irony of it.


There is no such term relating specifically to medical terminology. After all that would imply a level of sadism on the medical neologists which I am sure they lack!

However this idea, is a form of irony as mentioned, I would say it comes closest to: -

Verbal irony

Where...

Words [are used] to convey a meaning that is the opposite of the literal meaning.

ref: verbal irony