Like, if you look at the back of a shampoo bottle or something, there’s always a ridiculously long name for an ingredient.Are these sorts of ingredients able to be broken down into elements? Kind of like how dihydrogen monoxide is just the chemical name for water.
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There are a few questions to tease out here, so I’ll try to guess what your intent is.
Molecules are made up of atoms bonded to each other. Your example of water is simple. Two hydrogens, one oxygen.
You can of course break down a molecule into its constituent atoms, but it seems more like you’re asking about the naming system.
Organic chemistry is about carbon-containing compounds, which life depends on. A simple carbon-containing compound is methane, CH4, one carbon with 4 hydrogens around it. Extend it by one and you get ethane, 2 carbons bonded to each other with 3 hydrogens each. Carbon can make 4 bonds, and can double bond. Structure determines function. [Sodium lauryl sulfate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_dodecyl_sulfate) has portions that are hydrophobic (water-repelling or oily) and hydrophilic (water-attracting) which means it will help put oils into water solution by having one end in the oily part and one end in the water part: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfactant has diagrams.
The other comment’s link to the IUPAC system shows the rules for making the systematic names. For compounds with historical sources, like from animal fat or plant oils, there are common names too. Like lauryl might have come from laurel oil.
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