One of the things that stroke me the most when I started research into carbon nanoforms was the names... still to these date I am not sure if there are genius or the silliest idea in science... Let's go through (by no means) a comprehensive list

Let’s start easy: C60 also known as buckminsterfullerene in reference to the architect Richard Buckminster Fuller whose dome have the structure those molecules cages (with the pentagons and hexagons). “We” even added the -ene to refer to the double bonds /alkenes. Good one!

A single layer from the graphite structure is known as graphene. I quite like this name, with the “graph-“ from graphite and the “-ene” to refer to the aromatic double bonds /alkenes. 10/10 for the name in my opinion!

Carbon nanotubes… well, that was just lazy, wasn’t it?
No wait! We can add the number of walls: single-walled carbon nanotubes, double-walled, multi-walled… ohh then it is ok.

Concentric fullerenes are known as carbon onions. “We” were getting creative and funny now

When a nanotube is filled with fullerenes it is known as a peapod. The fullerene-people had the best names! But do I feel a food-theme here?

well... carbon tubular structures that look like these under the electron microscope are known as herringbones… it smells fishy here.

What happens when you rolled up a graphene sheet like in a scroll…. You get a carbon nanoscroll. And that is it, you got the name: carbon nanoscrolls.

A graphene sheet in a conical shape will be a nanocone but similar structures also appear in clusters which may look like and is known as dhalia

Now this starts to get “dangerous” because if we are going to use the name of macroscopic things that resemble the nanostructure… where you see a duck, I may see a rabbit.

When the “sticky” cones are pretty long and the center is full, we have multiple names depending where you are from: sea urcid, durian or chestnut. Ok, that starts to be a problem for a good nomenclature.

What about this? Well… the possibilities are (almost) endless. I have seen nanotorus, crop-circles, toroidal fullerenes, nanohoops, carbon-based toroids, doughnut-shaped tubes, and carbon nanotube rings.

Good luck putting that for a search in a literature review.

One of the best : dog-bones. When
large diameter single and double-walled nanotubes collapse so the cross-section looks like a bone. Well, that is what I would call drawing a long bow

One that gets on my nerves is buckypaper which is film made of an agglomeration of carbon nanotubes

- with no fullerenes!! just carbon nanotubes!!! WHY THE "BUCKY"??!!!!