Naming Acids!

Naming acids is really quite easy.
First off, what are acids?

Acids are formed when a compound composed of hydrogen ions and a negatively charged ion are dissolved in water. This is a state called aqueous. (aq.)
Ions separate when dissolved in water.

So now that we know what acids are, on to how to name them!
With simple acids, all you have to do is remember these 3 simple steps.

1. Use "hydro" at the beginning.
2. Drop the last syllable of the non-metal and replace it with "-ic". 
3. Add "acid" at the end.

Pretty easy, right?

Let's try an example.

HF, which you know as Hydrogen Fluoride, now becomes Hydrofluoric Acid.

See what I did there? I changed the end of Fluoride, by replacing the "-ide" with "-ic", and then added Acid at the end. It's as simple as that!

Let's try naming complex acids now. 

Once again, there are only 3 rules you need to know for naming complex acids.

1. Replace "-ate" with "-ic". 
2. Replace "-ite" with "-ous".
3. Add "acid" at the end.

This may seem like something thats hard to remember, but it's really not. 

Here's something that Mr. Morrison taught Ms. Chen to teach us! 

"We ate ic-y sushi and got appendic ite-ous." 

Get it? You replace ate with ic, and ite with ous. 

For example, HCN. You may think that this is Hydrogen Cyanide. But if you take the steps as shown above, you'll now know that it's really Hydrocyanic Acid.

Now a harder one...

HNO2.

Pfft, harder? That's easy! 

Hydronitrite Acid? Right?

Wrong. With more complex acids, you need to DROP THE HYDRO.

The answer for this one is actually Nitrous Acid. "-ous", because the original ion ends with "-ite". Then just add acid at the end!

The only two elements that do not lose the last part of their names are Sulphur and Phosphur. 

They change to Sulphuric, Phosphurous, etc. 

Just in case this isn't really clicking for you, try checking out this video. 

Naming Acids

Hope this makes sense for you!