The names for ionic compounds are very simple. The first part of the name is
simply the name of the metal element
The second part of the name is the name
of the nonmetal element
with the ending changed to the suffix –ide. For
example, consider the compound Al2O3
While the subscripts indicate that the
compound consists of two atoms of aluminum and three atoms of oxygen
these
numbers do not affect the name. The first part of the name would be aluminum
For the second part of the name, we drop the ending on oxygen and add –ide,
thus it becomes oxide
The name of the compound is then aluminum oxide