It might help to know these names are formed systematically. URIs can also look inscrutable, but make more sense once you know how to break them down into sche

It might help to know these names are formed systematically. URIs can also look inscrutable, but make more sense once you know how to break them down into scheme://user@host:port/path Chemical names (mostly) work the same way. There are a fair number of rules and concepts, but once you understand them, the endless names map onto structures pretty cleanly[0]. Here are some of them: http://www.chem.uiuc.edu/GenChemReferences/nomenclature_rules.html http://www.chem.uiuc.edu/GenChemReferences/nomenclature_rule... [0] Mostly. There are some historical exceptions. Acetone should be called something like 2-propanone, for example, but...it isn't.