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Chemical elements may be named from various sources: sometimes based on the person who discovered it, or the place it was discovered. Some have Latin or Greek roots deriving from something related to the element, for example some use to which it may have been put.
All 118 discovered elements are confirmed and have a formal name and symbol, as decided byIUPAC. The last four names and symbols were added on November 28, 2016.[1][2] Currently there are no unconfirmed discoveries and all seven periods (rows) of the periodic table are completed.
Element names can refer to:
Chemical elements are sometimes named after people, especially the synthetic elements discovered (created) afterc. 1940. Very few are named after their discoverers, and only two have been named after living people: the elementseaborgium was named afterGlenn Seaborg, who was alive at the time of naming in 1997;[5] and in 2016oganesson was named afterYuri Oganessian (still living as of January 2025).
Manytransuranic elements are named afterNobel Prize winners:
Other transuranic elements are named after scientists who did not receive the prize:[6][7]
The transuranic elementflerovium was named after the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions, which in turn was named afterGeorgy Flyorov. The IUPAC stated that the element was named after the laboratory, not Flyorov,[8] butYuri Oganessian, who led the team at the laboratory that discovered the element, said that the intention of the naming was to honor Flyorov.[9]
The elementsamarium is named afterVasili Samarsky-Bykhovets,[10] andgadolinium is indirectly named (via the mineralgadolinite) afterJohan Gadolin.[11][12]
Lecoq de Boisbaudran, who named the elementgallium after his native land of France (fromLatinGallia meaningGaul) denied that the element's naming was for apun on his own name ("le coq" means "the rooster" inFrench, as does "gallus" inLatin).[13][14]
Some chemical elements are named after places on the planet earth. Elements which are named after currently existing countries and cities are as:
Several places inScandinavia have elements named after them.
A number of other elements are named afterclassical words for various places.
The naming of elements from astronomical objects stems from the ancient association of metals with the various planets and their gods, as follows: mercury withMercury; copper withVenus; iron withMars (named for the Roman god of war); tin withJupiter (named for the Roman king of the gods); and lead withSaturn (named for the ancient, slow god who was the father of Jupiter). TheSun and theMoon were associated with gold and silver, respectively.
A few other elements are directly named for astronomical bodies, includingplanets,dwarf planets,asteroids, theEarth, the Sun, and theMoon.Uranium,neptunium,plutonium,cerium, andpalladium were named afterUranus,Neptune,Pluto,Ceres, andPallas, respectively.[32][33][34][35][36] The nameselenium comes from the Greek word for the Moon (Σελήνη,Selene). Similarly, the namehelium is derived from the Greek word for theSun (Ἢλιος,Helios), as the first evidence for helium came in the form of distinctiveemission lines from the Sun that were not explainable by any of the known elements in the 1870s.[37] Tellurium is named after theLatin wordtellus, meaning "earth".
Many elements are named after the minerals in which they are found, e.g.calcium after Latincalx (lime),silicon is named after Latinsilex (sand),sodium after soda andpotassium after potash.[citation needed]
In 1979, IUPAC published recommendations for theirsystematic element names to be used for yet unnamed or undiscovered elements[38] as aplaceholder, until the discovery of the element is confirmed and a permanent name is decided on. The recommendations are mostly ignored among scientists, who simply call these elements by theiratomic number, for example "element 119" (instead of "ununennium"), with the symbol of(119) or even simply119.[39]
Since 2002, the IUPAC Inorganic Chemistry Division has been the official body responsible with assigning official names to new elements, with the IUPAC Council making the final decision.[40]
There are some standard suffixes for the element names. The suffix-ium, or less commonly-um, usually denotes a metallic element, or at least one that was thought to be metallic when it was discovered (helium is not a metal, and germanium, selenium, and tellurium are more typically termed metalloids or nonmetals). It arose from the Latin suffix of metals such asaurum (gold) andferrum (iron). The suffix-on is used by some nonmetals (boron, carbon, silicon) as well as the noble gases from neon downward. For the noble gases, it arises from the Greek-adjective names of the stable noble gases (neon, argon, krypton, and xenon), with radon matching its source radium as well as adding the-on suffix. For the nonmetals, the-on was generalised to boron and silicon from the ending of "carbon". The-ine suffix is used only for the halogens, with chlorine being named first, and the others being named to match. The suffix-gen is used for three other nonmetals forming diatomic molecules (hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen). Suffixes were used more inconsistently before 1784, with tungsten (discovered 1783) the last element discovered whose English name lacks a standard suffix.[41]
The naming rules promulgated by IUPAC in 2002 declared that all newly discovered elements should have names ending in-ium, for linguistic consistency.[40] In 2016, this was amended so that elements in the halogen and noble gas groups would receive the traditional-ine and-on suffixes. This amendment was put into practice for tennessine (element 117) and oganesson (element 118); it was noted that the 2002 recommendations had apparently not anticipated that these elements would be reached as quickly as they were.[42]
Once an element has been named, a one- or two-letter symbol must be ascribed to it so it can be easily referred to in such contexts as the periodic table. The first letter is always capitalized. While the symbol is often a contraction of the element's name, it may sometimes not match the element's English name; for example, "Pb" for lead (from Latinplumbum) or "W" fortungsten (from GermanWolfram). Elements which have only temporary systematic names are given temporary three-letter symbols (e.g. Uue for ununennium, the undiscovered element 119).
The naming of the synthetic elementsdubnium andseaborgium generated a significant amount of controversy, referred to as theTransfermium Wars. The Americans wished to name element 105hahnium, while the Russians preferred the name dubnium. The Americans also wished to name element 106 seaborgium. This naming dispute ran from the 1970s (when the elements were discovered) to the 1990s, when theInternational Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) created a tentative list of the element names for elements 104 to 109. The Americans, however, refused to agree with these names because seaborgium was not in the list. Thus, IUPAC reconsidered, and in 1996 named element 105 dubnium and element 106 seaborgium.[43]
In the past, elements would sometimes be renamed if the original discovery claim was successfully challenged: this occurred for elements 43 (technetium replacing masurium), 61 (promethium replacing illinium), and 85 (astatine replacing alabamine).[44] To avoid confusion, this is no longer done, e.g. element 102 is still called nobelium even though that discovery claim was refuted.[42]
When a pure element, comprising only one type of atom, nevertheless exists in multiple forms (allotropes) with different structure and properties, they are generally given different names; for examplegraphite anddiamond are both forms of the elementcarbon. Even for elements such asnitrogen having only one stable allotrope, a name such as dinitrogen may be used to indicate its molecular structure N2 as well as its elemental composition. The naming of chemical compounds comprising more than one element is a complex subject, discussed at length in the article onchemical nomenclature.
Beryllium – Named for the mineral beryl, which makes it indirectly named for Belur, India
