How is nitrous acid named from the nitrite ion?

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The structure of phosphorous acid, H3PO3. — oxyacid The structure of phosphorous acid, H₃PO₃.

In the nomenclature of oxyacids, the naming convention for an acid is determined by the suffix of its corresponding anion. When an anion name ends in -ite, the -ite suffix is replaced by -ous to name the resulting acid.12

Following this rule, nitrous acid (HNO $_{2}$ ) is named by taking the root of the nitrite ion (NO $_{2}^{-}$ ) and replacing the -ite ending with -ous.12