Naming of chemical elements
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. There is some debate over what unnamed elements, whether due to being hypothesised or newly discovered, should be named — whether a number (e.g. 113), a transliterated number (e.g. ununtrium), or a placeholder name.
Known elements
| Group | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hydrogen & alkali metals |
Alkaline earth metals | Triels | Tetrels | Pnictogens | Chalcogens | Halogens | Noble gases | ||||||||||||
| Period |
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| 2 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 3 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 4 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 5 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 6 | 
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| 7 | 
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- Ca: 40.078 — Abridged value (uncertainty omitted here)[2]
- Po: [209] — mass number of the most stable isotope
As shown by the table above, as of March 2014, there are 118 known elements.[3]
Etymology
Element names can refer to:
- a mythological concept or character (including an astronomical object),
- a mineral or similar substance,
- a place, or geographical region,
- a property of the element, or
- a scientist.
People
Chemical elements are commonly named after people. However, very few are named after their discoverers, and very few are named after living people. The element seaborgium was named after Glenn Seaborg, who was alive at the time.[4] It has also been suggested that Lecoq de Boisbaudran named the element gallium after himself (Boisbaudran's first name means "rooster" and the Latin word "gallus" also means "rooster").[5] Most of the human namesakes of the transfermium elements are also recipients of the Nobel Prize. Such elements include lawrencium, rutherfordium, seaborgium, bohrium, and roentgenium, but not mendelevium, nobelium, or copernicium.[6][7] Other elements that are named after people include fermium, einsteinium, curium, and gadolinium.[8][9] Additionally, samarium is named after a mineral, which is in turn named after Vasili Samarsky-Bykhovets.[10]
Places on earth
Some chemical elements are named after places on the planet earth. Three are named after currently existing countries – polonium (named after Poland[11]), francium (named after France[12]) and germanium (named after Germany,[13] and the only one of the three which is stable and occurs in more than trace amounts on Earth) – whilst americium is named after the Americas.[14] Other elements are named after modern states or cities, including berkelium and californium named after the American city and state where they were discovered,[15] and dubnium, similarly named after Dubna, Russia.[16]
Several places in Scandinavia have elements named after them. Yttrium, terbium, erbium, and ytterbium are all named after the Swedish village of Ytterby[17] and holmium after the Swedish capital Stockholm.[17] Scandium is derived from the Latin word for Scandinavia and thulium is named after the mythical word for the same region.[17][18]
A number of elements are named after the Latin words for various places. The element ruthenium is named for the region including Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia.[19] Lutetium is named after Lutetia, the Latin name for Paris and hafnium is named for Hafnia, the Latin name for Copenhagen.[20][21] Holmium is named after Holmia, which is Latin for Stockholm.[22] Copper's name comes from an Old English word for the Latin name for Cyprus.[23]
The names of both magnesium and manganese derive from the Greek region of Magnesia.[24]
Astronomical objects
A few elements are named after astronomical places, including moons, dwarf planets, and planets. Uranium, neptunium, plutonium and cerium were all named after the planets Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Ceres respectively (although Pluto and Ceres are now considered dwarf planets).[25][26][27][28][29] The element selenium derives from the Greek word for the Moon (Σελήνη, Selene). Helium is named after the Greek word for the Sun (Ἢλιος, Helios). This is because the first evidence for helium was in spectroscopy lines from the Sun that, at the time, could not be explained by any other known element.[30]
Minerals
Many elements are named after the minerals in which they are found, e.g. calcium after Latin calx (lime), silicon is named after Latin silex (sand), sodium after soda and potassium after potash.[citation needed]
Temporary names
In 1979, IUPAC published recommendations for their systematic element names to be used for yet unnamed or undiscovered elements[31] as a placeholder, 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 their atomic number Z, for example "element 119" (instead of "ununennium"), with the symbol of (119) or even simply 119.[32]
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.[33]
Chemical symbol
Once an element has been named, a one-, two-, or three-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 capitalised. While the symbol is often a contraction of the element's name, sometimes the symbol and name do not match up as the symbol is based on non-English words, such as "Pb" for lead (plumbum in Latin) or "W" for tungsten (Wolfram in German).
Naming controversies
The naming of the synthetic elements dubnium and seaborgium generated a significant amount of controversy, referred to as the Transfermium Wars. The Americans wished to name element 105 hahnium, 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 the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry 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, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry reconsidered, and in 1996 named element 105 dubnium and element 106 seaborgium.[34]
Alternative forms of an element, names indicating molecular structure, and names of compounds
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 example graphite and diamond are both forms of the element carbon. Even for elements such as nitrogen 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 on chemical nomenclature.
References
- ^ Meija, Juris; et al. (2016). "Atomic weights of the elements 2013 (IUPAC Technical Report)". Pure and Applied Chemistry. 88 (3): 265–91. doi:10.1515/pac-2015-0305.
- ^ Prohaska, Thomas; Irrgeher, Johanna; Benefield, Jacqueline; Böhlke, John K.; Chesson, Lesley A.; Coplen, Tyler B.; Ding, Tiping; Dunn, Philip J. H.; Gröning, Manfred; Holden, Norman E.; Meijer, Harro A. J. (2022-05-04). "Standard atomic weights of the elements 2021 (IUPAC Technical Report)". Pure and Applied Chemistry. doi:10.1515/pac-2019-0603. ISSN 1365-3075.
- ^ [1]
- ^ Kean, 129
- ^ Kean, 55
- ^ Gray, 230-231
- ^ Kean, 273
- ^ Gray, 220-229
- ^ Emsley, 188
- ^ Emsley, 464
- ^ Emsley, 412
- ^ Emsley, 185
- ^ Emsley, 197
- ^ Gray, 85
- ^ Kean, 119
- ^ Emsley, 157
- ^ a b c Kean, 62
- ^ Emsley, 468
- ^ Emsley, 458
- ^ Emsley, 299
- ^ Emsley, 210
- ^ Emsley, 224
- ^ Emsley, 145
- ^ Emsley, 310
- ^ Emsley, 405
- ^ Emsley, 345
- ^ Emsley, 594
- ^ Emsley, 120
- ^ Emsley, 475
- ^ Gray, Theodore. The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe.
- ^ Chatt, J. (1979). "Recommendations for the naming of elements of atomic numbers greater than 100". Pure and Applied Chemistry. 51 (2): 381–384. doi:10.1351/pac197951020381.
- ^ Haire, Richard G. (2006). "Transactinides and the future elements". In Morss; Edelstein, Norman M.; Fuger, Jean (eds.). The Chemistry of the Actinide and Transactinide Elements (3rd ed.). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer Science+Business Media. ISBN 1-4020-3555-1.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link) - ^ "Naming of new elements(IUPAC Recommendations 2002)". Pure and Applied Chemistry. 74. doi:10.1351/pac200274050787.
- ^ Kean, 127-128
Bibliography
- Theodore Gray (2009), The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc.
- Sam Kean (2011), The Disappearing Spoon and Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World From the Periodic Table of the Elements, Back Bay Books/Little Brown and Company
- John Emsley (2011), Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements — New Edition, Oxford University Press
