Naming Compounds Naming Compounds Now that you have learned how to name the elements, you need to learn how to name compounds. Here we are looking at ions combining with ions. In these compounds the cation is named first. Well, compounds have to have a neutral overall charge. Unfortunately life is not even this simple.
Some atoms form more than one type of cations.
You will need to memorize the table below which shows these common cations and their names. Fortunately the names are easy. You will still see this terminology in some literature, but we will use the Roman numeral method as below. Note that mercury is a bit wierd. We just use the naming system above for the particular cation.