Chemical compounds trivial names

In 1814, J.J. Berzelius succeeded for the first time in systematically naming chemical substances by building on the results of quantitative analyses and on the definition of the term "element by Lavoisier. In the 19th century, the number of known chemical compounds increased so rapidly that it became essential to classify them, to avoid a complete chaos of trivial names (see Section 2.2.4). 

The systematic lUPAC nomenclature of compounds tries to characterize compounds by a unique name. The names are quite often not as compact as the trivial names, which are short and simple to memorize. In fact, the lUPAC name can be quite long and cumbersome. This is one reason why trivial names are still heavily used today. The basic aim of the lUPAC nomenclature is to describe particular parts of the structure (fi agments) in a systematic manner, with special expressions from a vocabulary of terms. Therefore, the systematic nomenclature can be, and is, used in database systems such as the Chemical Abstracts Service (see Section 5.4) as index for chemical structures. However, this notation does not directly allow the extraction of additional information about the molecule, such as bond orders or molecular weight. 

Neither a trivial name nor the systematic nomenclature, which both represent the structure as an alphanumerical (text) string, is ideal for computer proccs.sing. The reason is that various valid compound names can describe one chemical structure (Figure 2-6). As a consequence, the name/structure correlation is unambiguous but not unique. Nowadays, programs can translate names to structures, and. structitrcs to names, to make published structures accessible in electronic journals (see also Chapter (I, Section 2 in the Handbook). 

Chemical Designation - A list of common synonyms is given. Synonym names are alternative systematic chemical names and commonly used trivial names for chemicals. An index of synonyms is provided at the end of the handbook to assist the reader in identifying a particular chemical and researching chemical hazards information in the event that the common name of the chemical is not known. The data field also contains the chemical formula. The chemical formula is limited to a commonly used one-line formula. In the case of some organic chemical compounds it has not been possible to represent the chemical structure within such limitation. 

Where the IUPAC name for a compound is very different from a previously used recent trivial name, the latter is included as a synonym in parentheses (and in single quotes where no longer an acceptable name). Generally, retained trivial names have not been used as main entry titles, but they have been used occasionally in the entry texts. Rarely, on the grounds of brevity, names not conforming strictly to IUPAC principles but recommended for chemicals used in industry in BS 2474 1983 have been used. The prefix mixo-,to represent the mixtures of isomers sometimes used as industrial materials, is a case in point. 

Abbreviations and symbols for chemical names of special interest in biological chemistry /. Biol Chem. (1966) 241, 527-533 Abbreviations and symbols a compilation Eur. J. Biochem. (1977) 74, 1-6 Trivial names of miscellaneous compounds of importance in biochemistry J. Biol Chem. (1966) 241, 2987-2994 Citation of bibhographic references in biochemical journals... 

Aromatic Hydrocarbons.. Aromatic hydrocarbons generally are considered those which have the characteristic chemical properties of benzene. Many such compounds are known more commonly by their trivial names than by their systematic names. 

J. H. Fletcher, 0. C. Dermer, and R. B. Fox, Nomenclature of Organic Compounds Principles and Practice, Advances in Chemistry Series No. 126, American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C., 1974. This book has a common sense approach to organic nomenclature and proposes abandoning many of the trivial names now in use, even when such use may be widespread. We shall most often use the conventions which are the authors first choices, and will give in parentheses names which are widely accepted but often quite unsystematic. 

This column gives the name and, below it, the Wiswesser Line Notation (WIN) designation of each compound included. Some of the names are the simplest and shortest trivial names for the compounds they denote others follow Chemical Abstracts nomenclature. The WLN designation is given only once for each compound when an entry continues onto the following pair of pages the name of the compound is repeated but the WIN designation is not. 

All of the known simple plant isoquinolines have been entered into this index under their common, or trivial names. Originally, there was a linear structure code attached to the trivial name entry which allowed the reader to immediately deduce the chemical structure and to access the compound directly in the structural index. It became apparent that a single page reference would do as well. Each trivial name thus leads to the chemical structure, the plants that contain that compound, and appropriate literature references. 

Type B. Those which contain no iso three-carbon group. Most of the hydrocarbons of this type, for which structures have been proved, contain two one-carbon groups in gem configuration and one or two additional isolated one-carbon or two-carbon groups, one of which is usually in meta position. These structures could be further divided into those that contain the gem-dimethyl configuration and those that do not, but their similar chemical reactivity warrants classification as a single group of compounds. Thus, Type B monocyclics may be considered as derivatives of dimethylcyclohexane, for which no trivial name has been well established. 

Names of compounds in the name index include all those shown in the density tables. In addition, phenyl derivative names, other IUPAC systematic names, Chemical Abstracts indexing names and certain trivial or obsolete names are included. 

You may have met this compound before (left), and perhaps called it ethanoic acid, its systematic name. But in a chemical laboratory, everyone would refer to this acid as acetic acid, its trivial name. The same is true for all these common substances. 

Early chemists routinely gave trivial names to substances before understanding their chemical structure and behaviour. This situation changed during the mid- to late-1800s. By this time, chemistry was firmly established as a science. Chemists observed and discovered new patterns of chemical relationships (such as periodicity). As well, chemists discovered new chemical compounds with tremendous frequency. The rapidly increasing number of chemical compounds required a more organized method of nomenclature. 

A detailed discussion of the nomenclature for heterocyclic compounds can be found in the first edition of Comprehensive Heterocyclic Chemistry (CHEC-I, Section 1.02). Some of the rules of systematic nomenclature used in Chemical Abstracts and approved by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry are collected here. Important trivial names are listed at the beginning of individual chapters. 

The ability to represent uniquely a chemical compound is a fundamental requirement for storage or transmission of chemical information. We define compounds by their molecular structure, as shown in two-dimensional diagrams or stored in computers. Pronounceable names have been developed for oral and written communication, ranging from the trivial, containing no structural information, to completely systematic names, which can be decoded to yield the original structure. However, the application of systematic nomenclature to complicated structures requires expert knowledge of elaborate systems of nomenclature rules. The use of systematic nomenclature to convey information about the increasingly complex molecular systems handled by today s chemists is both laborious and inefficient. 

Textual names have the advantage of being machine-readable, but many chemical compound names are derived in the absence of structural information. Common or trivial names were frequently given to compounds based on their properties or methods of extraction (because their structural information was originally an unknown). For example, mandelic acid was extracted from bitter almonds, and its name is derived from Mandel, the German word for almond (Merck 1989). 

Figure 3.6 shows 12 structures that may correspond to the abbreviation DPA. Six of them can be output by the ACD/Name to Structure software package, and six more were found by browsing the Internet. Note that even a specific context cannot guarantee an exact meaning. For example, both structures 3 and 8 were found in publications about coordination compounds. In general, chemical abbreviations are not unique and can rarely be distinguished from other trivial names except for the rather weak criterion that all letters are capitalized. We can conclude that conversion of any trivial name shorter than about five or six characters is not safe. A few rarer exceptions do exist, but this is a very short list. Examples include reserved abbreviations such as those for dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, EDTA. 

A significant fraction, however, of the documents in the scientific literature dealing with chemical entities and their biological effects are not composed of trivial names for the compounds under investigation. For the automated analysis of the chemical named entities in these publications, we need to use other methods. In principle, it should be possible to use rule-based approaches to identify IUPAC names (and other forms of IUPAC-like expressions), in particular, because the IUPAC name construction itself is based on rules. However, IUPAC names are neither unambiguous, nor can they easily be checked automatically for compliance with IUPAC nomenclature rules. In fact, most IUPAC-like expressions in patent literature seem to be not compliant with the IUPAC nomenclature, and cannot easily be converted into structures.40... 

Although throughout the chapter this series of compounds will be referred to by their popular trivial name, benzomorphans, the Chemical Abstracts name... 

In addition to systematic chemical nomenclature, the vitamins have an apparently illogical system of accepted trivial names arising from the history of their discovery (Table 1.1). For several vitamins, a number of chemically related compounds show the same biological activity, because they are either converted to the same final active metabolite or have sufficient structural similarity to have the same activity. 

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