# Naming Chemical Compounds
**Chemical Nomenclature:** A collection of rules used to name the vast array of [[Atoms, Molecules, and Compounds]] discovered by scientists.
The simplest compounds are known as **binary compounds**, as their name implies they consist of only two elements.
---
## Compounds Containing Only Monatomic Ions
### Naming Oxyions
When a nonmetal forms two oxyanions:
- `-ate` is the suffix