Final answer:
The name for SO2 is sulfur dioxide, where 'sulfur' is the name of the element and 'dioxide' indicates the presence of two oxygen atoms.
Step-by-step explanation:
The name for SO2 is sulfur dioxide. This compound is a mixture of sulfur and oxygen, where the sulfur atom is joined by two oxygen atoms. Sulfur, being lower in the periodic table, comes first in the compound's name. Since there are two oxygen atoms, we use the prefix 'di-' to indicate the quantity, resulting in 'dioxide' when combined with the stem 'ox-' and the suffix '-ide'. Therefore, the complete chemical name is sulfur dioxide. It is important to note that sulfur forms another common compound with oxygen, which is SO3 or sulfur trioxide. Each of these compounds has distinct chemical and physical properties, necessitating unique names for accurate identification.