Common names

Under the common-name system, an aliphatic amine's name is built simply as 'alkyl amine' -- the name of the attached alkyl group, followed directly by the suffix '-amine' (for example, ethyl plus amine gives ethylamine). For a MIXED amine -- one where the groups on nitrogen are not all identical -- the names of the different alkyl groups are written together in ALPHABETICAL order (for example, ethyl before methyl gives ethylmethylamine). Where two or three IDENTICAL alkyl groups sit on the same nitrogen, the multiplying prefix 'di-' or 'tri-' is placed before the single alkyl-group name instead of writing the group out two or three times (giving, for example, dimethylamine or trimethylamine). For aromatic amines, the parent compound C6H5-NH2 is given its own retained common name, aniline, and every other arylamine is then named as a substituted derivati …