How Elements Get Their Names: Gods, Places, Scientists and Colours

Every element name tells a small story. Some are thousands of years old and come from Latin, Greek or Old English. Others were chosen at a meeting in the last few years. Together they form a map of human history — ancient metalworkers, Swedish miners, Cold War physicists, and one very productive village.

Named after properties

Many older elements were named for something you could see or smell:

• Hydrogen — Greek for “water-former”, because it burns to make water.
• Oxygen — “acid-former”; Lavoisier wrongly believed all acids contained it.
• Nitrogen — “nitre-former” (nitre is saltpetre, potassium nitrate).
• Bromine — from Greek brōmos, “stench”.
• Osmium — from osmē, “smell”, for its pungent oxide.
• Phosphorus — “light-bearer”, because white phosphorus glows in the dark.
• Argon — “lazy” or “idle”, because it wouldn’t react with anything.
• Astatine — “unstable”.
• Technetium — “artificial”; it was the first element made in a lab.

Named after colours

Spectroscopy in the 1800s revealed several elements by their coloured spectral lines or colourful compounds:

• Chlorine — chlōros, pale green.
• Iodine — iōdēs, violet (its vapour).
• Rubidium — rubidus, deep red.
• Cesium — caesius, sky blue.
• Indium — the indigo line in its spectrum.
• Thallium — thallos, a green shoot, for its bright green line.
• Rhodium — rhodon, rose, for its pink salts.
• Iridium — Iris, goddess of the rainbow, for its many-coloured compounds.
• Chromium — chrōma, colour, because its compounds are so colourful.

Named after mythology and astronomy

• Titanium — the Titans of Greek myth.
• Vanadium — Vanadís, a name of the Norse goddess Freyja, for its beautiful compounds.
• Thorium — Thor, the Norse god of thunder.
• Promethium — Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods.
• Tantalum — Tantalus, tormented in the underworld (tantalum can sit in acid without absorbing it).
• Niobium — Niobe, daughter of Tantalus (it was long confused with tantalum).
• Helium — Helios, the Sun, where it was first detected.
• Uranium, neptunium, plutonium — the planets Uranus, Neptune and (then-planet) Pluto, each discovered just beyond the one before.
• Selenium (Moon, selēnē) and tellurium (Earth, tellus) — a deliberate pair, since they’re chemically similar.
• Cerium and palladium — the asteroids Ceres and Pallas.

Named after places

• Ytterby, a village in Sweden, gave its name to yttrium, terbium, erbium and ytterbium — four elements from one quarry.
• Scandium (Scandinavia), holmium (Stockholm), thulium (Thule, the far north).
• Copper from Latin cuprum, from Cyprus, a major source of copper in the ancient world.
• Magnesium and manganese from Magnesia, a region of Greece.
• Strontium from Strontian, a village in Scotland.
• Gallium (Gaul/France), germanium (Germany), francium (France), polonium (Poland), ruthenium (Russia), europium (Europe), americium (the Americas).
• Hafnium (Hafnia, Latin for Copenhagen), lutetium (Lutetia, Paris), rhenium (the Rhine).
• Newer ones: berkelium and californium (Berkeley, California), dubnium (Dubna, Russia), darmstadtium (Darmstadt, Germany), hassium (Hesse), livermorium (Livermore), nihonium (Japan), moscovium (Moscow), tennessine (Tennessee).

Named after scientists

About a dozen elements honour people, including Einstein, Curie, Mendeleev and Nobel. We cover them in elements named after scientists.

Where the symbols come from

Most symbols are simply the first one or two letters of the English name (H, He, C, Ca). But about a dozen come from Latin or other names — Na for sodium (natrium), Fe for iron (ferrum), Au for gold (aurum). See element symbols that don’t match their names.

How new elements are named today

Since the 1990s, IUPAC has set clear rules. The discoverers propose a name, which must be based on:

• a mythological concept or character (including astronomical objects),
• a mineral or similar substance,
• a place or geographical region,
• a property of the element, or
• a scientist.

Names also have to follow the endings of their group: most end in -ium; group 17 elements end in -ine (tennessine); group 18 in -on (oganesson). A proposal is published for five months of public review before approval. See the newest elements.

Quick answers

Which element is named after a living person? Only two ever have been at the time of naming: seaborgium (Glenn Seaborg) and oganesson (Yuri Oganessian).

Which place has the most elements named after it? Ytterby in Sweden, with four.

What’s the oldest element name? Names like gold, silver, copper, iron, tin and lead come from ancient words in many languages, older than any written record of their origin.