This article has two purposes: one, it gives students in chemistry classes a suggested method to memorize the names of chemicals; two, it gives teachers a suggested way to help students learn these terms.
In a given chemistry class, you may easily be asked to name hundreds of different chemicals on the spot. It is overly naïve and time-consuming to memorize each one independently. Rather, it is wise to look for a shortcut: observation of patterns. Chemicals are named according to a system of prefixes and suffixes based on the elements they contain. For instance, consider this list of anions:
\(Cl^{-}\) Chloride ion
\(F^{-}\) Fluoride ion
\(Br^{-}\) Bromide ion
\(I^{-}\) Iodide ion
A student could memorize each term independently, or just remember this simple rule: negatively charged ions derived by adding electrons to a lone atom are given the "-ide" ending. You can just take the name of the base element and change the suffix. That's about a dozen ions you've just memorized with the effort needed to memorize only one by memorizing each one individually.
Most ions and molecules (namely acids) follow at least one of the common patterns of chemical nomenclature.
Here is one other example.
Example 1: Various acids are a combination of oxyanions and hydrogen atoms. These acids have a third element besides oxygen and hydrogen. They are broken into groups based on the identity of the third element. For instance, one such group is
$$HBrO_4$$
$$HBrO_3$$
$$HBrO_2$$
$$HBrO$$
Another such rule that applies to all groups of acids is as follows: one acid in the group will have the suffix "-ic" (in this case, Bromic acid is \(HBrO_3\)). Then, the acid with one less oxygen atom has the "-ous" suffix. This rule applies for all acids that are constituted of hydrogen atoms and oxyanions. Thus, you can use that same rule to identify \(HIO_3\) as Iodic Acid and \(HIO_2\) as Iodous Acid.
Such a method makes memorizing the names for chemical formulas much faster. Finding and utilizing such patterns is one of the central tools that chemistry students must master, and chemical nomenclature is an excellent example of that.