Where do all these chemical names come from? Starting with several alkanes - methane, ethane, propane, and ending with crazy so-called "trivial" names of compounds - styrene, quinine, fullerene?
It turns out that the situation with the homologous series of alkanes is the most difficult. Methane is so-called due to methanol - methyl ("wood") alcohol, which was called "methylene" in 1834. This word is composed of two Greek roots (and one was chosen with error), and the formula of the substance at that time was set incorrectly. But the name, as they say, was settled, successfully survived to the conference on the chemical nomenclature in 1892.
Ethanol was similarly called "ethyl" for the first time - the name is not simply close to the word "ether" ("Upper air" from Greek). By the way, alcohol was originally called "spiritus", that is, the soul (wine, of course). If we take into account that diethyl ether (the same) is obtained from alcohol (the same), we can imagine what a mess there was at that time in the names of any volatile compounds.
Speaking of confusion. The names of magnesium and manganese elements are not accidental. In the area called "Magnesia" (present-day Turkey), they found a mineral that attracted iron and was eventually called magnetite, which gave rise to the word "magnetism". But there is another "Magnesia" in present-day Greece, and minerals were also found in it. One was white - it was called "magnesia alba", i.e. "white ore from magnesia", and later magnesium element was obtained from it. Another mineral was black and was used in the production of colored glass. Considering it to be a type of magnetite (although it is not magnetic), it was called "magnesia nigra", i.e. black magnesia, and later called "manganesia". When a new element was singled out from it, they called it manganese. The Russian word "manganese" came to us from the German language.
If to go further on on a number of homologues it will appear that propane is so named thanks to propionic acid ("protos" - the first, "peony" - fat) which really is the first fatty acid - unlike acetic and ants it does not mix with water and gives soap at interaction with alkali. Pretty prosaic. But the next fatty acid was extracted from butter and called butyric or butyric, hence the name butane.
As for the ants (it is methane, but it turned out later), it can be guessed - it was really isolated from the ants. With vinegar everything is clear, but if you know that in English it is "acetic" (acetic), you immediately ask for the name of the next volatile transparent fragrant liquid (which is plenty in chemistry), obtained by heating the salts of acetic acid - let's call it acetone.
Fortunately, all other names of alkanes - pentane, hexane, heptane - are formed from Greek numerals. I've already written about some of these acids.
Many compounds were named simply by the source from which it was extracted. This is, for example, styrene extracted from styrene, a resin of a certain type of tree. Or piper or pepper. This compound can be split into two, which are called piperinic acid and piperidine, respectively. Piperinic acid forms aldehyde piperonal when oxidized. Piperonal can be converted into alcohol, which is called piperonyl alcohol. By the way, a compound related to piperidine, but having one more nitrogen atom, was called piperazine.
Pyridine, though related to piperidine, is named independently of him. It is a flammable liquid (or is it still born of fire?) ("pyro" - fire), obtained by distillation of bones. You can imagine how this liquid smells, so if the name "bromine" (bromine - stench) is not already occupied, it would be quite suitable in this case.
Benzene. What the hell kind of alcohol is that? It's called "benzene" in English (not to be confused with gasoline!), which reflects its unsaturated, albeit aromatic, nature. There is, however, a similar connection with the (formally) triple connection, which is called "benzyne" in English. In Russian, it has to be called dehydrobenzene.
Or quinine. It is isolated from the bark of the heinna tree, and the ending "in" gives all alkaloids (they are usually difficult to confuse with alkynes :) ). It can be used to produce quinone, which (although with a stretch) is ketone, or maybe quinoline. About quinuclidine (which is also present as a fragment of a molecule) I am completely silent. Well, we have to name all these compounds, right?
One of the first alkaloids studied was nicotine. It is so named after the plant - Nicotiana Tabacum, and it got its name in honor of Jean Nico - one of the first distributors of tobacco. The nicotine was then used to produce nicotine acid, which suddenly turned out to be vitamin A.