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Name

Generate IUPAC Names from Chemical Structures

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Name Overview

Get Systematic Chemical Names for Structures, and Produce Structures from Names

ACD/Name generates chemical names according to IUPAC rules, converts chemical names to structures, and easily handles challenging areas of nomenclature.

  • Generate names for organic; biochemical; and some inorganic, organometallic, and polymer structures
  • Convert systematic or trivial names to structures
Benefits

IUPAC Naming at Your Fingertips

Easy to Use

  • Name your molecule with one button click

Exhaustive Coverage

  • Generate names and structures for a broad array of molecules

Chemically Aware

  • Identifies tautomers and stereocenters automatically

Accurate and Up-to-Date Implementation of IUPAC Rules

  • Name is updated regularly to support new recommendations.

Deeper Understanding of Nomenclature Rules

  • Highlight each fragment of your structure to view the applicable IUPAC rule

Assign stereodescriptors and numbering to atoms; display a "hierarchical graph" for each stereocenter.

Dynamically display the nomenclature rules used to name your structure.

Name steroids and other natural parent compounds in accordance with IUPAC recommendations.

Generate the preferred IUPAC name for your structure with the click of a button.

Names for peptide sequences can be represented with one- or three-letter codes for amino acids.

Generate names for branched ring assemblies.

Assign stereodescriptors and numbering to atoms; display a "hierarchical graph" for each stereocenter.

How it Works

Name Molecules with Ease and Accuracy

Request a Consultation or Demo
  • 1 Draw or import a structure
  • 2 Generate the IUPAC name
  • 3 Examine the generated name and references to the IUPAC rule from which the structure was derived
Customer Reviews
“We use ACD/Name daily to verify the nomenclature of submitted manuscripts.”

Richard J. Smith,
Managing Editor, Helvetica Chimica Acta

“ACD/Name was temporarily unavailable for <1 month when we moved to new PCs; more than 50% of patent attorneys noticed and complained during that time.”

Dave Ennis
AstraZeneca

“When compared with other naming software...the quality of names generated from ACD/Name is second-to-none.”

Gernot Eller
Molecules, 11, 915-928, 2006

Product Features

Features of Name

  • Draw, copy/paste, or import molecular structures in various formats (including ChemDraw, MOL files, and SMILES)
    See the full list of supported data formats

  • Generate accurate systematic names according to IUPAC recommendations
  • Produce Index names in accordance with CAS nomenclature rules*
  • Generate names for organic, biochemical, inorganic, and organometallic structures, including:
    • Various functional groups, including acids, alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, ethers, peroxides, salts, and more
    • Mono- and polycyclic systems
    • Homogeneous and heterogeneous chains
    • Natural product structures (steroids, alkaloids, terpenes, and carotenes)
    • Carbohydrates (in Haworth and other representations)
    • Amino acids, peptides, and derivatives
    • Radicals and charged structures
    • Some polymers
  • Assign stereodescriptors (R/S, E/Z, M/P, r/s, seqCis/seqTrans, α/β, and cis/trans)
  • Assign numbering to atoms
  • Display a “hierarchical graph” for each stereocenter
  • Dynamically display the nomenclature rules used to name your structure
  • Import multiple structures from SDfiles and automatically generate their names
  • Export structures and names as SDfiles

* Index naming algorithms have been developed by ACD/Labs alone and CAS makes no warranty or guarantee about its effectiveness or accuracy. If you require chemical substance names for reporting to regulatory agencies, they should be manually checked or obtained directly from CAS.

  • Generate accurate structures from chemical names, including:
    • Systematic, semisystematic and trivial names of organic compounds
    • Natural product structures and derivatives
    • Amino acids and peptides; including three-letter codes for peptides
    • Complex molecules such as carbohydrates and polysaccharides
    • Functional groups, including acids and derivatives, aldehydes, ketones, alcohols, ethers, and more
    • Incorrect names that do not strictly follow Organic Nomenclature rules
  • Generate structure from many names and identifiers, including:
    • InChI and SMILES notations
    • CAS Registry and EU numbers
    • Trade and registered names (INN, USAN, BAN, JAN)
  • Designate the stereoconfiguration of chiral centers and double bonds
  • Generate structure derivatives using trivial and semi-trivial names from Dictionary
  • Ambiguous names produce a warning, or generate several possible structures for review
  • Generate systematic names in English, French and German
  • IUPAC naming is supported in 15 additional languages—Bulgarian, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, and Swedish**
    • Differences in spelling, grammar, and order of citation for substituents are taken into account for these language variations
  • Set your nomenclature and language preferences

** The development of naming in specific languages is ongoing and, in some instances, the generated name may deviate from local language recommendations. We recommend consulting nomenclature recommendations for your language to ensure accuracy.

Name (Chemist Version)

Quick and simple generation of IUPAC names

For scientists that don’t need the advanced functionality of ACD/Name, we offer ACD/Name (Chemist Version).

This software generates IUPAC names from structures, and structures from names; without the advanced functionality, language options, and rule derivations required by nomenclature experts.

See a Feature Comparison of our various Compound Naming software

All prices in USD. Exchange rate fluctuations may occur. If you prefer to purchase in your local currency, please contact us for a quote.

Register with an academic email address to see discounted prices or contact us to discuss your eligibility.

  • Subscription License (Maintenance included, billed annually until cancelled) – $398.00

Our web store is temporarily unavailable. If you have an immediate need to purchase software please contact us and a member of our sales team will be in touch.

Contact Us

Operating System Requirements

  • Microsoft Windows 8.1 (x64)
  • Microsoft Windows 10 (x64)

Hardware Requirements

  • Microsoft Windows compatible PC with minimum 2-core CPU
  • 4 GB or more RAM
  • Minimum of 40 GB of disk space

Software License

  • Granted in perpetuity, with a term of technical support and software updates included.

Subscription License

  • Subscribe to use the software yearly, outside of which the license is invalid. Automatically renewed until cancelled.

ACD/Labs’ maintenance delivers product enhancements, bug fixes, software updates, and access to our knowledgeable technical support specialists for the term of the plan. Read the full details here.

Deployment/Integration Options

Need to Name Hundreds or Thousands of Compounds?

For researchers who need to generate names for compound libraries, or process hundreds of structures for compound registration, we offer ACD/Name Batch and ACD/Name to Structure Batch.

  • Generate names for thousands of structures in one session
  • Select between different languages for generating IUPAC names
  • Process text files and databases in SDFormat
  • Generate InChI identifiers
  • Save the generated names to .sdf, .rtf, or .txt files
  • Available for Windows or Linus operating systems

ChemSketch is included with Name for all your structure drawing needs.

Start in the ChemSketch interface to draw or import a structure, and quickly generate the IUPAC name for your drawn structure with one button click.

See What Else You Can Do with ChemSketch

More Reasons to Use Name

IUPAC Nomenclature Rules

The IUPAC Recommendations on the Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry (IUPAC Blue Book)1 provide naming principles for all classes of organic compounds, and continue to evolve.

In 2013, a new version of the IUPAC Blue Book was published, which included a variety of changes and new recommendations to keep pace with the growing complexity of chemical substances.

The most significant change was the concept of “Preferred IUPAC Name” (PIN), established by a hierarchical order of criteria allowing the derivation of a unique systematic name intended for registrations, patents, regulations, etc.

Additionally, this publication included nomenclature principles developed for more complex substances and new classes of compounds such as fullerenes and cyclophanes.

The majority of the updated IUPAC organic nomenclature recommendations have been implemented in ACD/Name v2015 and later. The full text of these recommendations is available in the print version1 and in HTML format2. We hope to make these recommendations available in our ACD/Name software in the future.

Previous published versions of the IUPAC Nomenclature Rules (from 1979 and 1993) are provided electronically on our web site here.

Our Contribution

ACD/Labs is proud of our participation in the development of new organic nomenclature recommendations both via our long membership in the corresponding IUPAC bodies and our contribution of the results of our work in the area of nomenclature. We continue to update our Name software to support these new recommendations.

References

  1. Favre, Henri A. and Powell, Warren H. Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry. IUPAC Recommendations and Preferred Name 2013. Cambridge, UK: The Royal Society of Chemistry, 2013. ISBN 978-0-85404-182-4.
  2. Moss, G.P. (2021, June 18). Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry. IUPAC Recommendations and Preferred Names 2013. https://www.qmul.ac.uk/sbcs/iupac/BlueBook/
What's New!

What's New in Name v2021

  • We improved the recognition of stereoisomers for structures with nitrogen in atropisomeric bonds
  • We improved citation and use of brackets for multiplied substituent groups
  • Previously refused specific arrangements of carbohydrate units are now named according to organic nomenclature
  • Extra punctuation marks are ignored when generating chemical structures from names

Read the Full List of What’s New

Learn More about Name
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No one is infallible – not even the experts!

Do you always update your software programs as soon as the next release is available? Read on for a customer story about why updating to the newest release is important, not to mention the importance of always checking your own work!
Blog

What you didn’t know about the history of chemical nomenclature

Chemical nomenclature may seem like a simplistic chemistry discipline; a requirement of every chemical pursuit that is often overlooked for the vital importance it plays. Here we discuss the legacy of our contribution to the field of chemical nomenclature – ACD/Name – and take a look at what has changed in the field of chemical naming over the past two decades.
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There just doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day to get everything done. There are ways to gain time and be able to do more but they can be difficult to identify because until we’re exposed to them we carry on as we always have. If you are still doing any of the things discussed here, then there are ways you can gain hours in your day and even do your job better than you are right now!
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A Quarter Century of Work and Fun…Looking back on my 25 years with ACD/Labs

Andrey Yerin, project leader for ACD/Labs nomenclature products, reflects on his 25 years with the company and the development of our Name software over that time.
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Nomenclature Products Comparison

  Name Name (Chemist Version) ChemSketch
Nomenclature systems IUPAC, CAS, IUBMB IUPAC IUPAC
Languages English, French, German English, French, German English
Name-to-Structure capability Yes Yes No
Other Language Support Bulgarian, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, and Swedish No No
Maximum number of atoms per molecule 1024 (excluding H) 1024 (excluding H) 50 (including H)
Elements and metal cations All elements except noble gases All elements except noble gases H, C, N, P, O, S, F, Cl, Br, I, Li, Na, and K
Maximum number of rings per cyclic fragment 20 20 3
Import/export *.sdf files Up to 99 structures No No
Link to IUPAC Rules and explanations of name derivation Yes No No
Maximum number of characters per name Unlimited Unlimited 100 characters

Supported File Formats

Vendor or File Format Data Format Comments
Chemical Drawings
ACD/Labs *.sk2
ChemAxon Marvin Sketch *.mrv Input only
Dassault Systèmes BIOVIA Draw *.skc Formerly ISIS Sketch, MDL Draw, Symyx Draw, and Accelrys Draw
PerkinElmer ChemDraw *.cdx, *cdxml, *.chm
Adobe Acrobat *.pdf Output only
Chemical Structures and Reactions
Chemical Markup Language *.cml Output only
FASTA formats *.fasta and other Peptide sequences
InChI Text string
InChIKey Text string Output only
MOL files *.mol
Pistoia Alliance HELM *.helm, *.xhelm Peptide sequences, input only for xhelm files
Reaction Files *.rxn
SMILES Text string
Images
GIF image format *.gif
JPG image format *.jpg Input only
Paintbrush *.pcx Output only
PNG image format *.png
TIFF Bitmap *.tif Output only
Windows Bitmap *.bmp, *.dib
Windows Metafile *.wmf