US equity options, typically cleared by the Options Clearing Corporation, underwent an initiative between 2008 and 2010 to change the standard symbology.
[1][2] The proposed revision was meant to address several deficiencies with the old standard convention described below.
In particular:[2] The new symbology does away with the letter codes for strike and expiration, and instead employ a 21-byte series key in the style of Root symbol (ticker symbol) + Expiration Year (yy) + Expiration Month (mm) + Expiration Day (dd) + Call/Put Indicator (C or P) + Strike Price:[2] For Example, an April 16, 2015 $30.00 Call Option on Yahoo would be listed as "YHOO150416C00030000".
[2] Prior to 2010,[1] standard equity option naming convention in North America, as used by the Options Clearing Corporation, was as follows: For example, an Apple Inc AAPL.O call option that would have expired in December 2007 at a $122.50 strike price would be displayed as APVLZ in old convention (AAPL071222C00122500 in new convention).
Stock option names are written in the following format: SYMBOL+MONTH+STRIKE