There are three characteristic features of systematic nomenclature in modern organic chemistry. First, the prefixes, suffixes, and root of the systematic name correspond precisely to sections of the structural formula of the molecule to which it refers. Second, this mode of identification and ordering is the foundation of how organic compounds are represented and indexed in chemical information systems. Third, most chemists - even organic chemists - want as little to do with these names as possible. These three features of systematic nomenclature - its correspondence to structural formulas, its importance for the structure of chemical information, and its perceived disconnection from the concerns of the daily practice of chemistry - are all rooted in the events of the Geneva Nomenclature Congress of 1892. This meeting brought together a small group of Europe's foremost organic chemists to work out a set of rules for naming organic chemical substances. One faction, led by French chemist Charles Friedel, favored creating a flexible nomenclature that express the various functional properties of compounds in their names. Another faction, led by German chemist Adolf von Baeyer, wished to codify a set of rules that would directly map structural formulas into systematic names, so that a list of tens of thousands of compounds could be ordered by name in a manner that grouped compounds by structure. In this paper, I will discuss the arguments that each group presented, and draw out some of the consequences of the victory of Baeyer's plan for the shape of the Geneva Nomenclature, for subsequent systems of organic nomenclature, and even for the enduring practice of representing molecules by means of two-dimensional structural formulas.

Rules, formulas, names: The lexical legacy of the 1892 Geneva Nomenclature Congress

249th National Meeting (2015)

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