Octahedral

[Stephen Sirmay 1I]

Can an octahedral also be classified as square bipyramidal? In the same way that a trigonal bipyramidal is named fittingly for its shape, couldn't an octahedral be named this?

[Faith Fredlund 1H]

No it cannot be named this. I'm not sure there is a reason why, but Dr. Lavelle said in class to a boy that asked this name question that it may never be called square bipyramidal. It will always be octahedral; named for its eight faces.

[David S]

It's simply a matter of convention. Sure, you can name it "square bipyramidal," and that can make sense, but somebody along the way decided to call it octahedral, and that name became the popular choice among scientists.

[Katie_Duong_1D]

Can an octahedral also be classified as square bipyramidal? In the same way that a trigonal bipyramidal is named fittingly for its shape, couldn't an octahedral be named this?

The octahedral shape corresponds to VSEPR formula AX6, meaning there are 6 bonding regions. However, the name is octahedral because there are 8 faces to an octahedron.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/27/Octahedron.jpg/280px-Octahedron.jpg