I understand that cytokines are released from a lot of different places when our immune system is fighting off a viral infection, but I don't quite understand why all of them are called cytokines? Are there specific names for each different cytokine that sets them apart from each other or are they mostly the same?
Yes, cytokine is a general name for the over a hundred immune system proteins. They each have different names and some have unique functions while others share functions with other cytokines. Immunology is an alphabet soup of cytokine names!