Talk:Benzyl cyanide

Article title

Imo, benzylnitrile is a more accurate use of a name than benzylcyanide because nitrile is covalently bonded, whereas cyanide can be confused with an inorganic salt. Take acetonitrile for example, calling methyl cyanide is only an informal name for this compound, because use of the word cyanide can cause false alarm.--79.74.18.105 (talk) 14:11, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In general, the title of an article is determined by what is used most commonly - see WP:COMMONNAME. For chemical compounds, this often means that the systematic name, IUPAC name, or other "proper" name is not the one used for the article title. In this particular case, "benzyl cyanide" appears to be much more common than "benzylnitrile", based on Google search results. -- Ed (Edgar181) 17:21, 10 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

As I think of it, when "nitrile" is used in the name, the root name (such as acetonitrile" includes the carbon of the nitrile in the chain, but if you name it as a cyanide or cyano it does not. Thus "aceto" nitrile = 2 carbons, but "methyl" cyanide = 1 carbon + CN. Also, the prefix always ends with an o not yl, so it would be benzo, not benzyl, and it would be a seven carbon structure, i.e., PhCN or benzonitrile. Benzylnitrile wouldn't be allowed. Walkerma (talk) 16:13, 25 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]