There are several apporaches to nomenclature, depending on the carboxylic acid used as the base name and the functional group represented.
Usually, there is substitution of -ic acid with an appropriate suffix:
Esters and nitriles use a slightly different methodology. Esters require you to name the alcohol part first, then the carboxylic acid part. The acid part is then given -ate in place of -ic.
The two parts of the name are separate words.
Nitriles replace -oic acid with -nitrile.
