Naming Compounds

Naming compounds was really tricky for our class to get the concept of. Which is exactly why it took us about two weeks to learn it! We learned about naming ionic and covalent compounds.

An ionic compound is a metal and a nonmetal, the metal is a cation, and the nonmetal is an anion.

The rules of naming ionic compounds:

• place your cation first, and then the anion
• then you name the cation, and behind that you put your anion ending in -ide
• for example NaCl which is sodium chloride: the chlorine turns into chloride
• If the compound uses a polyatomic ion you name the cation and then you name the polyatomic ion.

The reverse of naming compounds is writing the formula. To me, this is a little harder.
 - To do this you criss cross the charges down which balances out the formula.
For example use Sodium Chloride. you have Na+  and Cl- When you cross these charges down you get NaCl

A covalent compound is two nonmetals. They have a more specific way to be done.

To name a covalent compound:

• You use prefixes to name compounds

• when you are naming the first element, you never use mono in front, it is only to be used on the second element.