Why are alkanes called paraffins?

Alkanes are called paraffin because of their little affinity towards a general reagent. In other words, alkanes are inert substances. Saturated hydrocarbons (alkanes) are called paraffin. Parrafin is derived from two Latin words: parum (which means little) and affinitas (which means affinity).

In simple terms, paraffin implies something which is less reactive. Alkanes are structures that contain only carbon-carbon and carbon-hydrogen covalent bonds. Carbon-carbon bonds entirely non-polar while the electro negatives of carbon (2.5) and hydrogen (2.1) are close together, making the relationship formed between carbon and hydrogen very weakly polar.