What exactly makes a carbon atom "α" in a protein residue? I'm a computer scientist and have no biochemical background, but was working on a project recently that had me going through a lot of protein residues for one reason or other. Feel free to correct me from here on, but my understanding is that proteins, also called "peptides" also "subchains" when a part of a larger macromolecule are made of amino-acids(central dogma) which are also frequently referred to as "residues". 

Upon closer (programmatic) inspection, each residue (amino-acid) turns out to be a bunch of atoms like so:


I was wondering what is the significance of that CA there in each of the residues, and whether i identified it correctly as "alpha-carbon". Protein Data Bank docs refer frequently to a residue's alpha-carbon. If it is indeed the alpha-carbon, i have two questions which are probably dead-simple to anyone with biochem background:


Why is that one(in space) considered alpha and not the carbon atom next to it?
Is it a given that each residue out there has only one alpha-carbon? Seems pretty obvious, but please.


Thanks a ton!
This nomenclature is due to the fact that amino acids are carboxylic acids.

Near the carboxylic acid moiety, the carbon chain is unbranched and simple, so the positions are named like an unbranched, simple aliphatic carboxylic acid.

The carboxylic acid ($\ce{-CO2H}$) is not indicated with a position. But the carbon immediately next to it is $\alpha$. The one next to that is $\beta$. That should be enough to explain the $\alpha$ in your context because that carbon is the one immediately next to the carboxylic acid. In a protein or polypeptide, the carboxylic acid is most frequently converted to an amide in a peptide bond, but the Greek letter nomenclature is unchanged.

This nomenclature is used in other cases for example, with an $\alpha$,$\beta$-unsaturated carbonyl.

The most publicly visible use of this nomenclature is when we use $\omega$ to denote the end of the carboxylic acid chain. This is the origin of the term $\omega$-3 [unsaturated] fatty acid.