60+ Names for Sugar on Ingredient Labels

Sugar hides under 60+ different names on ingredient labels. Most people only recognize one.

Food manufacturers aren't lying when they say a product has "no sugar added." They're just using one of the other names for sugar on labels that most shoppers don't recognize. There's no legal requirement to use the word "sugar" itself — dextrose, maltose, and rice syrup all show up on the nutrition label as "added sugars," but on the ingredient list they can look completely unrelated.

That's the gap this list closes. Below is a categorized reference of the most common names sugar hides under — organized the way they actually show up on labels, not alphabetically. Bookmark this page, or scan any label directly with Sugar Scanner to get an instant breakdown instead of cross-referencing a list by hand.

Why Sugar Has So Many Names

Chemically, most of these are some combination of glucose, fructose, and sucrose extracted from different plant sources — cane, beets, corn, rice, coconut, dates, maple. The source changes the name. The effect on blood sugar mostly doesn't. A few, like brown rice syrup and dextrose, actually spike blood sugar faster than table sugar itself despite sounding gentler.

The Full List, by Category

Table Sugar & Cane-Derived Names

• Sugar
• Sucrose
• Cane sugar
• Beet sugar
• Brown sugar
• Raw sugar
• Turbinado sugar
• Demerara sugar
• Muscovado sugar
• Powdered sugar
• Confectioner's sugar
• Icing sugar
• Castor sugar
• Sucanat
• Evaporated cane juice
• Cane juice crystals
• Yellow sugar
• Barbados sugar

Glucose-Based Names

• Glucose
• Dextrose
• Corn syrup
• Corn syrup solids
• Glucose syrup
• Golden syrup
• Grape sugar
• Brown rice syrup
• Rice syrup
• Tapioca syrup
• Rice bran syrup

Fructose-Based Names

• Fructose
• Crystalline fructose
• High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
• Fruit juice concentrate
• Concentrated fruit juice
• Fruit juice

Malt-Based Names

• Malt syrup
• Maltose
• Barley malt
• Malt extract
• Diastatic malt

Syrups & Traditional Sweeteners

• Maple syrup
• Agave nectar
• Agave syrup
• Molasses
• Blackstrap molasses
• Sorghum syrup
• Honey
• Caramel
• Treacle
• Refiner's syrup
• Carob syrup
• Invert sugar
• Invert cane syrup
• Buttered syrup

Lactose & Dairy-Derived

• Lactose
• Milk sugar

Plant & Palm-Derived

• Coconut sugar
• Coconut palm sugar
• Palm sugar
• Date sugar
• Panela
• Panocha

Processing Derivatives Worth Watching

• Maltodextrin
• Dextrin
• Ethyl maltol

The Three That Sound Healthiest but Aren't

Not every name on this list behaves the same way in your body, and a few are worth knowing by name specifically because they're marketed as the "clean" alternative:

How to Spot Hidden Sugar Fast

• Check ingredient position, not just the name. Ingredients are listed in order of quantity — whatever's first is the most. If any sugar name shows up in the first three ingredients, it's a primary ingredient, not a minor one.
• Watch for more than one sugar name at once. Manufacturers sometimes split sugar across two or three of these names so no single one has to appear near the top of the list, even though combined they outweigh everything else.
• Don't trust "natural flavor" alone. It's a legal catch-all that can include sugar-derived compounds without naming them directly.
• "No added sugar" isn't the same as low sugar. A product can be free of added sugar and still carry a high load of natural sugar from concentrated fruit juice or purée.

Skip the Manual Cross-Reference

Scrolling back to this list every time you're standing in the grocery aisle isn't realistic. Sugar Scanner does this lookup automatically — photograph or upload any ingredient label and it flags every hidden sugar name, plus the glycemic index and health effects for each one, in seconds.

Get the Full List as a Printable PDF

Want this list on your phone or fridge without hunting for this page again? Grab the free "60+ Names for Sugar" PDF and get The Hidden Sugar Weekly — a free newsletter that breaks down one hidden ingredient, sneaky marketing claim, or ingredient label at a time.