IUPAC Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry - System

System

The names "caffeine" and "3,7-dihydro-1,3,7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6-dione" both signify the same chemical. The systematic name encodes the structure and composition of the caffeine molecule in some detail, and provides an unambiguous reference to this compound, whereas the name "caffeine" just names it. These advantages make the systematic name far superior to the common name when absolute clarity and precision are required. However, for the sake of brevity, even professional chemists will use the non-systematic name almost all of the time, because caffeine is a well-known common chemical with a unique structure. Similarly, H₂O is most often simply called water in English, though other chemical names do exist.

1. Single atom anions are named with an -ide suffix: for example, H− is hydride.
2. Compounds with a positive ion (cation): The name of the compound is simply the cation's name (usually the same as the element's), followed by the anion. For example, NaCl is sodium chloride, and CaF₂ is calcium fluoride.
3. Cations able to take on more than one positive charge are labeled with Roman numerals in parentheses. For example, Cu+ is copper(I), Cu2+ is copper(II). An older, deprecated notation is to append -ous or -ic to the root of the Latin name to name ions with a lesser or greater charge. Under this naming convention, Cu+ is cuprous and Cu2+ is cupric. For naming metal complexes see the page on complex (chemistry).
4. Oxyanions (polyatomic anions containing oxygen) are named with -ite or -ate, for a lesser or greater quantity of oxygen, respectively. For example, NO₂− is nitrite, while NO₃− is nitrate. If four oxyanions are possible, the prefixes hypo- and per- are used: hypochlorite is ClO−, perchlorate is ClO₄−,
5. The prefix bi- is a deprecated way of indicating the presence of a single hydrogen ion, as in "sodium bicarbonate" (NaHCO₃). The modern method specifically names the hydrogen atom. Thus, NaHCO₃ would be pronounced sodium hydrogen carbonate.

Positively charged ions are called cations and negatively charged ions are called anions. The cation is always named first. Ions can be metals or polyatomic ions. Therefore the name of the metal or positive polyatomic ion is followed by the name of the non-metal or negative polyatomic ion. The positive ion retains its element name whereas for a single non-metal anion the ending is changed to -ide.

Example: sodium chloride, potassium oxide, or calcium carbonate.

When the metal has more than one possible ionic charge or oxidation number the name becomes ambiguous. In these cases the oxidation number (the same as the charge) of the metal ion is represented by a Roman numeral in parentheses immediately following the metal ion name. For example in uranium(VI) fluoride the oxidation number of uranium is 6. Another example is the iron oxides. FeO is iron(II) oxide and Fe₂O₃ is iron(III) oxide.

An older system used prefixes and suffixes to indicate the oxidation number, according to the following scheme:

Thus the four oxyacids of chlorine are called hypochlorous acid (HOCl), chlorous acid (HOClO), chloric acid (HOClO₂) and perchloric acid (HOClO₃), and their respective conjugate bases are the hypochlorite, chlorite, chlorate and perchlorate ions. This system has partially fallen out of use, but survives in the common names of many chemical compounds: the modern literature contains few references to "ferric chloride" (instead calling it "iron(III) chloride"), but names like "potassium permanganate" (instead of "potassium manganate(VII)") and "sulfuric acid" abound.