 | Thisguideline documents an English Wikipedianaming convention. Editors should generally follow it, thoughexceptions may apply.Substantive edits to this pageshould reflect consensus. |
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FromWikipedia:Naming conventions:
Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize, with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature.
Trivial names (non-systematic, or "common" names) are favored for use in titles of articles for organic compounds instead ofsystematic names. Trivial names are usually different from thepreferred name followingIUPAC nomenclature. For compounds lacking trivial names, as is often the case for complex structures,substitutive nomenclature or other systematic names may be used. The general rule is to use the name most commonly used to refer to the compound, as evidenced by use inreliable sources (in line withWP:COMMONNAME).
Classes of compounds may have more specific guidance on naming, such as the use ofinternational nonproprietary names forpharmaceutical compounds (seeWP:NCMED andbelow).
Examples of use of trivial names and not systematic names include:
| acetic acid | not | ethanoic acid |
| toluene | not | methylbenzene |
| lysine | not | 2,6-diaminohexanoic acid |
| 1-pentanol | not | pentan-1-ol |
| benzaldehyde | not | benzenecarbaldehyde |
| diethyl ether | not | ethoxyethane |
| benzophenone | not | diphenylmethanone |
Systematic and other accepted names for the compound not used as the article title should instead beredirects tagged with the{{R from alternative name}} template and listed in thechembox as other names, with especially significant alternative namesmentioned in the lede in bold font.
At this English wiki, the preferred presentation coloring scheme of the elements is by blocks (s, p, d, or f).
The colours to be used are given in{{Element color}}:
s-block → #ffe6dd p-block → #fdff8c d-block → #d9eff5 f-block → #aaffad This template also gives colours for the higher orbitals:
g-block → #fee3fd h-block → #7ed9d9 i-block → #e0c880 Categorisation is an attempt to classify all elements into one overall scheme, with each element in exactly one category (as opposed to listing non-completifying sets likecoinage metals). A general classification is not achieved in sources (let alone withoutWP:NPOV andWP:OR). Such categorisation then is not to be used in general (for example, not as a general coloring of the periodic table).
A general colouring by metallicity is discouraged, because there areWP:NPOV andWP:NOR concerns: the borders of some categories can differ drastically between sources (e.g.metalloids), and there is no set of categories that are mutually exclusive and yet cover the entire periodic table (e.g. astatine is quite likely to be both a metal and a halogen). However, such coloring may be used to base and illustrate dedicated topics (such as in sections ofmetalloids). Individual, well-established "metallicity" categories, e.g.transition metal,post-transition metal,metalloid,rare earth metals etc., can be referred to without "all elements all once" colouring.
When a specific categorisation scheme is relevant (e.g.{{ChemicalBondsToCarbon}}), a periodic table-filling categorisation can be applied.
Traditionally, the names of threeelements have been spelled differently in different parts of the English-speaking world. For articles about chemistry-related topics, Wikipedia follows the spellings recommended by theInternational Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC):[12][2]
| aluminium | not | aluminum |
| sulfur | not | sulphur |
| caesium | not | cesium |
These spellings should be used in all chemistry-related articles on English Wikipedia, even if they conflict with the national spelling variety otherwise used in the article.
This convention should also be applied to all compounds and derivative names of these chemicals:sulfatenotsulphate;sulfuricnotsulphuric; etc., e.g.caesium sulfide.
The English name of element 74 istungsten and notwolfram: the latter wasonce adopted by IUPAC (in1949), but is no longer recommended by them (even as an alternative) per the 2011Principles. (Of course, the symbol is still W, and the name "wolfram" may be referred to when explaining why that is the case, or when quoting text in languages that use that name.) Similarly for derivatives (per the 2005 Red Book), usetungstate,tungsty,tungsta and notwolframate,wolframy,wolframa. (And similarly avoid the old namesemanation andniton for element 86 outside historical contexts; there is a real confusion even in today's literature between radon meaning the element Rn and radon meaning the isotope222Rn, but the way to solve that is by explicitly clarifying what is meant, not resurrecting archaic terms that have fallen out of use and may not be generally understood.)
Elements that have not been given trivial names by IUPAC may be referred to either by IUPACsystematic element names and symbols, or by atomic numbers. Soununennium andelement 119 are both correct, and symbolsUue,119,E119 may all be used in text. However, fornatural disambiguation, the article titles should be at the systematic names.
When new elements are recognised,do not change the names and symbols to those proposed by the discoverers until the public comment period expires and IUPAC makes the final announcement! (The symbol has changed between the initial proposal and the final recommendation before, in the case ofcopernicium: originally proposed as Cp, but became Cn.)
<sup>13</sup>C). Avoid13C,C-13,C13 (and avoid like single characterU+2074⁴SUPERSCRIPT FOUR, as used in Wikidata).Elements with atomic numberZ ≥ 119 are theoretical elements: They have not been discovered (synthesized). Regarding public-page creation and content (reader-visible pages, such as article, category, template):
To compare: Discovered elementOganesson (E118) has its article, plus all five secondary articles; none is a redirect.
As of 4 Jan 2023[update]: Effectively this means that currently public-page creation, by content or redirect, is not permitted nor needed. See also documentation atTemplate:Infobox element § Theoretical elements handling.
The names of elements and other chemicals should be written without abbreviations and treated ascommon nouns. They do not have special capitalization or italic formatting (seeMOS:CAPS andMOS:ITALIC) regardless of the origin of the name unless appropriate for the start of a sentence or part of a title. The symbols for elements should always be capitalized.
Prefixes that are such assec-,tert-,ortho-,meta-,para-, α-, β-,D-,L-, (+)-, (−)-, (R)-, (S)- and the numerical prefixes are not considered part of the name: they each follow their own capitalization and italics rules, and it is instead the first letter of the main part of the name that is treated as the "first letter" of the name to be capitalized where appropriate. Exceptions arecyclo,iso,neo, andspiro which are considered part of the name and therefore not italicized or hyphenated.Substituent groups are also considered part of the name.
In former versions of the IUPAC recommendations, names were written with a capital initial letter. This practice has been abandoned in later publications.[13] IUPAC policy differentiate proper names from things named after proper names. This rule (full name uncapitalized but symbol capitalized) applies also to isotopes and nuclides, when completely written out: thus14C but carbon-14.
When the chosen article title starts with a prefix including positional identifiers (ortho-,meta-,para-,N-,O-, α-, β-, γ-, etc.), isomeric identifiers (sec-,tert-, etc.), stereochemical identifiers (cis-,trans-, (E)-, (Z)-, etc.), chiral identifiers ((R)-, (S)-,D-,L-, (+)-, (−)-, etc.), or numbers, the first letter after the prefix in the name should be capitalized: hence titlecase1,1,1-Trichloroethanenot1,1,1-trichloroethane. A redirect from the uncapitalized version should be created to simplify linking from other articles.
Non-numerical prefixes are italicized and uncapitalized in titles (tert-Butyl alcohol, for example). Both numerical and non-numerical prefixes are followed by a hyphen. The template{{DISPLAYTITLE}} is used to display titles which start with lowercase letters or include italics.
Note thatcyclo,iso,neo, andspiro are considered part of a chemical name (such asisopropanol) and not considered prefixes. No hyphens or italics are used in these cases.
Article titles for compounds and related topics should reflect how the compound name iscommonly written and use Greek letter prefixes if appropriate, e.g.Α-Ketoglutaric acid, using{{DISPLAYTITLE}} to display asα-Ketoglutaric acid,notAlpha-Ketoglutaric acid and displaying asalpha-Ketoglutaric acid. In the article page name (article location) it is important to use the uppercase Greek letter, even though it can be easily confused with uppercase Latin letters in many cases, so that DISPLAYTITLE (or alternatively,{{lowercase title}}) will work properly. It is also essential toensure redirects exist for all possible typed variations of the compound name so searchers can easily reach the appropriate article.
Stock nomenclature for inorganic compounds is based on the indication of theoxidation number (as a roman numeral, in parentheses) of each of the major elements in the compound,e.g.iron(III) chloride. It is widely, if sometimes incorrectly, used on Wikipedia for the titles of articles about inorganic compounds.It is not obligatory, as there are other acceptable methods for naming these compounds, but it is often preferred as the most common non-ambiguous name for a substance. The following guidelines are based on current WikiBestPractice:
Names of oxyanions should in general follow the names in Table X of the IUPAC 2005 Red Book.[2] Exceptions can be made if an alternate name is much more common in the literature, e.g.xenate rather thanxenonate (don't generalise this to radon though, as it would create an ambiguity between radon and radium).
Where a compound has aWHOinternational nonproprietary name (INN), this should be used as the article title (seeWP:NCMED). Exceptions would be where the pharmaceutical use of a certain compound is secondary to other applications (commodity chemical, synthetic intermediate, etc., agriculture or industry).
Redirects should be created for:
Even with the best will in the world, no set of guidelines can cover every case. Some articles on Wikipedia have non-standard titles through consensus that this is the most commonly used name (in scientific circumstances) for the compound concerned,whatever IUPAC or the other rules suggest. For example:
Please do not revert-war over the naming of an article: the best place for discussion is on the article's talk page or (failing that) atWikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemicals.
For articles about classes of organic compounds, the singular class name from the IUPAC "Glossary of Class Names"[14] is usually used, e.g.alkane,carboxylic acid,ether,ketone,acyl chloride. Articles aboutfunctional groups should use the name mostcommonly used to refer to the group inreliable sources (generally, the name of the correspondingradical) followed by the word "group", e.g.alkyl group,carboxyl group,phenyl group,carbonyl group,trimethylsilyl group,triflyl group. In many cases, the compound or compound class and corresponding functional group are discussed in the same article, generally using the compound class as the article title with the name(s) of the functional group redirecting there (although the opposite is possible).
For groups of compounds named after a simple parent compound, articles about the group should be located at theplural of the parent compound name, e.g.hydrazines,silanes,boranes,diphosphenes. Similarly,salts andesters ofcarboxylic acids should collectively be referred to by the plural of thecarboxylate. In some cases, the group of compounds (e.g.triflates), the functional group (e.g.triflate group), and the carboxylate (e.g.triflate) will warrant a separate article; whether the article should be titled by the compound group, functional group, or carboxylate should be decided on a case by case basis depending on the group and how the article is constructed. Related terms not chosen as the title should be redirects and mentioned in the lede in bold font. In cases where the carboxylate is not generally considered as a functional group, the plural may either redirect to the article about the parent acid (or the carboxylate if there is a separate article about the carboxylate), or be a separate article orchemistry index that lists salts and esters of the parent acid (e.g.benzoates). Rare cases may have separate articles for the carboxylate, functional group, and group of compounds.Hatnotes should be used to link between these similarly named pages to facilitate navigation between these closely related topics.
The general article about theorganometallic chemistry of an element should be entitled "Organo[element] chemistry", e.g.,organomercury chemistry,organopalladium chemistry,organozinc chemistry. The IUPAC definition of an "organometallic compound" includes boron, silicon, arsenic, and selenium, so this title guideline also applies toorganoboron chemistry,organosilicon chemistry, etc.[15] For consistency this is extended even to obvious nonmetals, e.g.organoxenon chemistry. The related pages "Organo[element] compound" and its plural should generally be redirects. Some flexibility can be used if the article is heavily weighted toward a specific topic, such as the case fororganolithium reagent, so long as the other forms redirect there. In some cases, abroad-concept article regarding the organometallic chemistry of an element may not yet exist; in these cases it is adequate to redirect these terms to an appropriate section of another article. On the other hand, depending on the metallic element, it may well be appropriate to have additional articles covering specific compounds or groups of compounds, or specific reactions.