Nomenclature of Organic Compounds

Each and every object in this universe is identified by its name. When organic chemistry was
in its infancy and not many compounds were known, the compounds were named based on
their sources or the name of their discoverer. These names are called common or trivial
names.

A set of rules formulated by IUPAC (the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry)
for systematic nomenclature of organic compounds which is revised from time to time. The
IUPAC nomenclature of organic compounds essentially consists of three parts which are
stem name, prefix and suffix.

It is interesting to note that the existence of preferred IUPAC names does not prevent the
use of other names to take into account a specific context or to emphasize structural
features common to a series of compounds. Preferred IUPAC names belong to a “preferred
IUPAC nomenclature”. Any name other than a preferred IUPAC name (as long as it is
unambiguous and follows the principles of the IUPAC recommendations herein) is
acceptable as a general IUPAC name in the context of a “general IUPAC nomenclature

Trivial Nomenclature System

The Trivial Nomenclature system involves a non-systematic approach to the naming of
organic compounds. There does not exist any particular collection of rules for writing the
trivial naming of compounds. Names of organic compounds are simplified via this system.
Examples of this include phenol, acetic acid, and toluene.

The compounds named via trivial nomenclature often have much shorter and simpler names
than the corresponding IUPAC nomenclature of the same compounds. For this reason, this
system is still not obsolete today.

An example of this relative ease of naming compounds can be seen in the following example
– A type of carboxylic acid which is generally found in tamarind is referred to as tartaric acid
as per the trivial system. The corresponding IUPAC nomenclature of tartaric acid would be
2,3-dihydroxy-1,4-Butanedioic acid.
Drawbacks of the Trivial Nomenclature System
A few shortcomings of the trivial system for naming organic compounds are listed below.

1.Several trivial names can exist for one specific compound. An example of this can be
observed in the alternate names of Phenol, for which names such as hydroxybenzene and
carbolic acid also exist.

2.The Trivial nomenclature system is limited to only a few compounds in each specific group.
An example of this is: the first two members belonging to the carboxylic acid group have the
trivial names formic acid and acetic acid. However, no trivial names exist for carboxylic acids
with a greater number of atoms.
There exist no particular set of guidelines for the nomenclature of complex compounds in the
trivial system.