<h2>IUPAC Reports</h2>
<p>The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) produces <a href="https://iupac.org/what-we-do/nomenclature/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">recommendations</a> on nomenclature for chemical compounds. They produce complete reports, and <a href="https://iupac.org/what-we-do/nomenclature/brief-guides/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">brief guides</a>. However, creating a systematic name from an arbitrary structure is not simple.</p>
<p>It probably depends what 'space' of structures you want to deal with. For simple organic compounds (branched, fused rings, non-bridged) it might be feasible, but there are many edge cases and tricky topics, such as stereochemistry, ligand priority ordering, multiple bridges, and so on.</p>
<p>For example, this is the 'Blue Book' : <a href="https://iupac.qmul.ac.uk/BlueBook/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://iupac.qmul.ac.uk/BlueBook/</a> which is a set of PDF docs. Converting these to formal rules would be time consuming, to say the least!</p>
<h2>Informal Names</h2>
<p>A resource like <a href="http://www.chemspider.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ChemSpider</a> provides multiple informal names for compounds, with an API to retrieve data. Seems like (from a quick test) you can get the 'CommonName'  field from the details. For example, for a random recordId:</p>
<p><a href="https://api.rsc.org/compounds/v1/records/325/details" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://api.rsc.org/compounds/v1/records/325/details</a></p>
<p>you get this return value:</p>
<p>{&quot;id&quot;: 325,&quot;commonName&quot;: &quot;2-Methoxy-4-vinylphenol&quot;}</p>
<p>so it gives you one common name. Seemingly also for benzene (id 236).</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-12-25T14:40:07.097Z
2021-12-25T14:47:11.300Z
2021-12-25T14:47:11.300Z
gilleain
<p>Two-parted question:</p>
<ol>
<li>Where is a cheatsheet or <em>complete</em> list of the &quot;formal&quot; IUPAC naming conventions?</li>
<li>Where is a cheatsheet or complete list of the &quot;trivial&quot; or &quot;informal&quot; chemical names?</li>
</ol>
<p>Does the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUPAC_nomenclature_of_organic_chemistry" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Wikipedia page</a> have <em>all</em> of the naming conventions, or are some missing? Then <a href="https://www.acdlabs.com/iupac/nomenclature/93/r93_671.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this page titled &quot;Trivial and semisystematic names retained for naming organic compounds&quot;</a> seems to link to some of the trivial names, but it is in a terrible format for a computer to read (I would like a spreadsheet or some sort of structured data format so I can use these in code) and I'm not sure it's complete. I have searched around on the web but don't seem to find anything that is complete and ideally as structured data. Does anything like this exist? If not structured data, what is the easiest document to read that is complete that I could manually convert into structured data? Also, any of this should ideally be a free resource.</p>

<database><cheminformatics>
Complete List of IUPAC Chemical Naming Conventions for Formal and Trivial Names?
# Complete List of IUPAC Chemical Naming Conventions for Formal and Trivial Names?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-12-18)

Two-parted question:

1. Where is a cheatsheet or *complete* list of the "formal" IUPAC naming conventions?
2. Where is a cheatsheet or complete list of the "trivial" or "informal" chemical names?

Does the [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IUPAC_nomenclature_of_organic_chemistry) have *all* of the naming conventions, or are some missing? Then [this page titled "Trivial and semisystematic names retained for naming organic compounds"](https://www.acdlabs.com/iupac/nomenclature/93/r93_671.htm) seems to link to some of the trivial names, but it is in a terrible format for a computer to read (I would like a spreadsheet or some sort of structured data format so I can use these in code) and I'm not sure it's complete. I have searched around on the web but don't seem to find anything that is complete and ideally as structured data. Does anything like this exist? If not structured data, what is the easiest document to read that is complete that I could manually convert into structured data? Also, any of this should ideally be a free resource.

**Tags:** database, cheminformatics

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2021-12-25. Score: 3 | Accepted answer

## IUPAC Reports

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) produces [recommendations](https://iupac.org/what-we-do/nomenclature/) on nomenclature for chemical compounds. They produce complete reports, and [brief guides](https://iupac.org/what-we-do/nomenclature/brief-guides/). However, creating a systematic name from an arbitrary structure is not simple.

It probably depends what 'space' of structures you want to deal with. For simple organic compounds (branched, fused rings, non-bridged) it might be feasible, but there are many edge cases and tricky topics, such as stereochemistry, ligand priority ordering, multiple bridges, and so on.

For example, this is the 'Blue Book' : <https://iupac.qmul.ac.uk/BlueBook/> which is a set of PDF docs. Converting these to formal rules would be time consuming, to say the least!

## Informal Names

A resource like [ChemSpider](http://www.chemspider.com/) provides multiple informal names for compounds, with an API to retrieve data. Seems like (from a quick test) you can get the 'CommonName' field from the details. For example, for a random recordId:

<https://api.rsc.org/compounds/v1/records/325/details>

you get this return value:

{"id": 325,"commonName": "2-Methoxy-4-vinylphenol"}

so it gives you one common name. Seemingly also for benzene (id 236).


---

