Talk:Alpha and beta carbon

Article drawing
WHAT IS ALFA CARBON.

In the article's drawing, would the carbon on the methyl group at the end also be an alpha carbon? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.196.9.180 (talk) 09:48, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Propose rename: Alpha and beta carbon
I came to this article from a link to beta carbon. For clarity, can we rename it Alpha and beta carbon? Otherwise, it's not obvious what the relevance of beta is.

The counterargument is that by extension, we could include gamma and delta to infinity in the title. Crystal whacker (talk) 21:10, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Maybe there's a generic name for this, such as "relative positional nomenclature". Or "Greek carbon". :) --Itub (talk) 18:07, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

New name, rewording
I welcome any help with this article. I changed the name from "alpha and beta carbon" to "Greek carbon nomenclature". I attempted to find a name for the system by searching Google, but I did not find anything consistent. I am guessing that it is because it is not a formal standard and because none of the possible names seems quite right, at least not at a short length (Greek carbon atom lettering for organic chemistry/Greek lettering system for carbon atoms in organic chemistry/Greek naming system for carbon atoms in organic chemistry). I am open to changing the article's name again if there is a better one.

I reworded the introduction to fit the new name, including the parts with the references, so I am not positive that they are still valid. -- Kjkolb (talk) 04:14, 6 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I changed it back. A Google search for "Greek carbon nomenclature" gives no hit at all. IUPAC has an article with the name "α (alpha), β (beta)" which comes close, and its notmal to say alpha carbon and beta carbon, but I dont know any formal name for the nomenclature. Christian75 (talk) 21:50, 7 March 2014 (UTC)


 * That article from IUPAC you link is for a fundamentally different thing. The IUPAC article is for describing stereochemistry where the specific location/molecule is either alpha, beta or unknown(xi). As far as I can tell, there is no formal name for this particular system of numbering, just like there isn't for using numbers. In the IUPAC blue book, it is just referred to as greek letters when it is discussing the locant. I propose merging this with locant and expanding the locant article to include other forms of locant numbering. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Black.jeff (talk • contribs) 06:35, 15 November 2021 (UTC)