This work describes the preparation of functional aromatic polyamides with pendant fluorescent chemical structures. The preparation of a parent copolyamide with a lateral fluorene moiety anchored to the main chain through a urea group is described, along with the chemical modification of the fluorene moieties to render six copolymers with different fluorescent behaviors. The easy and clean chemical modification of the polyamide structure permits the preparation of high-performance materials with "a la carte" fluorescence properties. The characteristics of these materials make them useful for cutting-edge technologies associated with the fluorescence of the pendant fluorene moiety and with the host behavior of the urea motif, that is, fluorescent sensing of analytes or hybrid luminescent converter light-emitting diode systems. The chemical modification of the polymer structure was carried out with chemicals and conditions optimized for polyamide models. The influence of the chemical structure of the pendant fluorene core has also been addressed in terms of thermal properties, solubility, water uptake, and so forth. (C) 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 48: 3823-3833, 2010