Nomenclature of alcohols: There are three systems of naming,

1.In the common system, alcohols are named as alkyl alcohols. The word alcohol is added after the name of the alkyl group to which the hydroxyl group is attached. For e.g., CH₃OH is methyl alcohol.

2. CARBINOL  SYSTEM:

3. In the IUPAC system, the names of saturated alcohols are derived from corresponding alkenes by replacing 'e' of alkenes by 'ol'

Some examples are shown below.

Here the numbering is done in such a way that OH group attached gets the lowest number.

For naming polyhydric alcohols, the name of the alkane is retained and the ending -e is not dropped. Thus dihydric alcohols are named as alkane diols and trihydric alcohols are named as alkene triols.