What are the rules for nomenclature of organic compounds?

TheIUPAC nomenclature of organic chemistryis asystematicmethod of namingorganic chemical compoundsas recommendedby theInternational Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry(IUPAC). Ideally, every possible organiccompoundshould have a name from which an unambiguousstructural formulacan be created.

For ordinary communication, to spare a tedious description, the official IUPAC naming recommendations are not always followed in practice, except when it is necessary to give an unambiguous and absolute definition to a compound, or when the IUPAC name is simpler (e.g. ethanol instead of ethyl alcohol). Otherwise the common ortrivial namemay be used, often derived from the source of the compound (see below). In addition, very long names may be less concise than structural formulae.