-ic -ous nomenclature I recently came across a practice problem in my textbook asking me to name a few compounds using -ic and -ous endings. The exact wording is:

Write the name of each of the following ionic substances, using -ous and -ic endings to indicate the charge of the cation.

The first one was $\ce{CoCl2}$. However, cobalt has more than just two oxidization states (3, 2, 0, and -1).

So if it is one of the states in the middle, how do I decide whether to use -ous or -ic
Cobalt may possibly have all those other oxidation states (and others too) for this nomenclature system, we only care about the two most common oxidation states in ionic compounds: $\ce{Co^{2+}}$ and $\ce{Co^{3+}}$. Cobalt(II) compounds would thus be named  cobaltous and cobalt(III) compounds would be cobaltic. Which is yours?