The rule is you don't write any numbers if it is not required to distinguish one substance from the other. And this rule makes it incorrect to say "1-methanol" or "1-ethanol", I have never heard any chemist using such a nomenclature (to be honest no thing like this has ever popped into my mind either). But that's IUPAC-wise.
However, I have never heard some older chemists who were taught the old nomenclature using names like 1-methanol or 1-ethanol even speaking just in theory. So the homologous series is: methanol, ethanol, propanol and this one is the first to have isomers: propanol-1-ol = n-propanol and propan-2-ol (also called in old nomenclature isopropanol but it's incorrect as there is no isopropane like I wrote before; however, it's such an important chemical in chemical industry that the old name is still used and it's considered passable even by IUPAC although not really correct), and so on... Chemists sometimes abstain from using proper IUPAC names, the example is in this thread actually. Should it be considered a derivative of an amine or a derivative of 1,3-benzodioxole? It's a derivative of an amine of course IUPAC-wise but people tend to name substances being derivatives of aromatic compounds in different ways that are almost correct according to IUPAC but the very first choice is wrong, i.e. which group is of higher importance.
But it's all far from what this thread has been created for, I have a feeling.
3rd_I_blind said:
But I am still of the opinion that - combining IUPAC conventions and common naming - N-methylamphetamine vs methamphetamine is the same as 1-ethanol vs ethanol, and thus methamphetamine should be preferred.
N-methylamphetamine is indeed a combination of IUPAC naming rules ("N-methyl" part) with "common" naming ("amphetamine" part). However, "methamphetamine" is a name that has totally nothing to do with IUPAC naming rules as in no case "methyl" is shortened to "meth-" and like I wrote earlier "amphetamine" is not an accepted name for 1-phenylpropan-2-amine at all (the situation is different with phenethylamine as alkaloids and "core" compounds widely used names for hormones or neurotransmitters are acceptable somehow).
I'm by no means willing to convince someone to call MDMA "1-(1,3-benzodioxol-5-yl)-N-methylpropan-2-amine" or call methamphetamine "N-methyl-1-phenylpropan-2-amine". But my opinion on naming rules for all compounds in chemistry "environment" is simple - there should be some uniform system and there is. It's not perfect and no wonder as it's hard to write the rules for all possible situations. IUPAC isn't perfect but at least it cleans the chaos there used to be.
Folley said:
^So then what is the correct way to write the whole thing out?
You can use all the mentioned names, i.e. methylenedioxymethamphetamine, methylenedioxy-N-methylmethamphetamine, and MDMA, and you will be understood both in places like here and in a company of chemists as this compound has been used for such a long time there is no way some chemist doesn't know what "amphetamine" or "MDMA" is, especially if he/she is actually a neurochemist. And they themselves won't waste time saying "1-(1,3-benzodioxol-5-yl)-N-methylpropan-2-amine", no, definitely not, they'll just say "MDMA" or "methylenedioxy..." if it's going to concern some derivatives. "1-(1,3-benzodioxol-5-yl)-N-methylpropan-2-amine" is just a full proper IUPAC name that may be used in some books on some branch of neuroscience and it'd still be used only to point out the IUPAC name.
Just like in "toluene" became accepted (and now is actually proper IUPAC names, nobody says "methylbenzene"), in the same way "amphetamine" and names of its derivatives will be used in chemistry literature concerning neurochemistry or some other neuroscience. I guess it's just a matter of time that the name will be accepted as the proper name because there are too many compounds in use being derivatives of this compound (like there'll be no "2-(methylamino)-1-(4-methylphenyl)propan-1-one" but "mephedrone" instead etc.).
The discussion on IUPAC naming rules is still open and I guess it'll always be because there are so many compounds that doesn't really follow any rule, e.g. you have to know by heart the names of nitrous acid and nitric acid and the situation complicates when salts of these are to be named (but it's actually in English, in my language HNO2 is "kwas azotowy (III)" and HNO3 is "kwas azotowy (V)", valence of the atom of nitrogen is simply given, the same goes for salts but some more complex salts and ions are still to be known by heart, older names are often shorter and when you work, time is money

).