ABSTRACT
Names of simple hydrocarbons Straight chain hydrocarbons, more routinely referred to as alkanes, are for the most part named according to the number of carbons in the chain. The only exceptions to this are the four simplest alkanes, methane, ethane, propane, and butane, whose names have historical roots. When there are more than four carbons in a straight chain then the
molecule name is prefixed by the Greek name for that number, and suffixed by -ane, to indicate that the class of compound is alkane (Table 1).
