List of chemical elements named after people
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This list of chemical elements named after people includes elements named for people both directly and indirectly. Of the 118 elements, 19 are connected with the names of 20 people. 15 elements were named to honor 16 scientists (as curium honours both Marie and Pierre Curie). Four others have indirect connection to the names of non-scientists.[1] Only gadolinium and samarium occur in nature; the rest are man-made.
List[]
These 19 elements are connected to the names of people. Seaborg and Oganessian were the living persons honored by having elements named after them; Oganessian is the only one still alive. The four elements associated with non-scientists were not named in their honor but named for something else bearing their name: samarium for the mineral samarskite from which it was isolated; and americium, berkelium and livermorium after places named for them. The cities of Berkeley, California and Livermore, California are the locations of the University of California Radiation Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, respectively.
Element | Individual(s) | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Z | Name | Symbol | Discovery | Immediate namesake | Name | Specialty | Born–Died | Nationality |
62 | Samarium | Sm | 1879 | the mineral samarskite | Vasili Samarsky-Bykhovets | Mining engineer | 1803–1870 | Russian |
64 | Gadolinium | Gd | 1886 | the mineral gadolinite | Johan Gadolin | Scientist | 1760–1852 | Finnish |
95 | Americium | Am | 1944 | the continents of the Americas | Amerigo Vespucci | Explorer | 1454–1512 | Italian |
96 | Curium | Cm | 1944 |
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97 | Berkelium | Bk | 1949 | the city Berkeley, California | George Berkeley | Philosopher | 1685–1753 | Irish |
99 | Einsteinium | Es | 1952 | Albert Einstein | Scientist | 1879–1955 | German–Swiss | |
100 | Fermium | Fm | 1952 | Enrico Fermi | Scientist | 1901–1954 | Italian–American | |
101 | Mendelevium | Md | 1955 | Dmitri Mendeleev | Scientist | 1834–1907 | Russian | |
102 | Nobelium | No | 1966 | Alfred Nobel | Scientist | 1833–1896 | Swedish | |
103 | Lawrencium | Lr | 1961 | Ernest Lawrence | Scientist | 1901–1958 | American | |
104 | Rutherfordium | Rf | 1969 | Ernest Rutherford | Scientist | 1871–1937 | New Zealand–British | |
106 | Seaborgium | Sg | 1974 | Glenn T. Seaborg | Scientist | 1912–1999 | American | |
107 | Bohrium | Bh | 1981 | Niels Bohr | Scientist | 1885–1962 | Danish | |
109 | Meitnerium | Mt | 1982 | Lise Meitner | Scientist | 1878–1968 | Austrian–Swedish | |
111 | Roentgenium | Rg | 1994 | Wilhelm Röntgen | Scientist | 1845–1923 | German | |
112 | Copernicium | Cn | 1996 | Nicolaus Copernicus | Scientist | 1473–1543 | Polish–German | |
114 | Flerovium | Fl | 1998 | the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research | Georgy Flyorov | Scientist | 1913–1990 | Russian |
116 | Livermorium | Lv | 2000 | the city Livermore, California, and the Lawrence Livermore Lab[2] | Robert Livermore | Land owner | 1799–1858 | English–Mexican |
118 | Oganesson | Og | 2002 | Yuri Oganessian | Scientist | 1933– | Russian |
Other connections[]
Other element names have been proposed but failed to gain official international recognition. These include columbium (Cb), hahnium (Ha), joliotium (Jl), and kurchatovium (Ku), names connected to Christopher Columbus, Otto Hahn, Irène Joliot-Curie, and Igor Kurchatov; and also cassiopeium (Cp), a name coming from the constellation Cassiopeia and is hence indirectly connected to the mythological Cassiopeia. (See the article on element naming controversies and List of chemical elements named after places.)
Also, mythological entities have had a significant impact on the naming of elements. Helium, titanium, selenium, palladium, promethium, cerium, europium, mercury, thorium, uranium, neptunium and plutonium are all given names connected to mythological deities. With some, that connection is indirect:
- helium: named for the Sun where it was discovered by spectral analysis, being associated with the deity Helios,
- iridium: named for the Greek goddess Iris,
- tellurium: named for the Roman goddess of the earth, Tellus Mater,
- niobium: named for Niobe, a character of Greek mythology,
- vanadium: named for Vanadis, another name for Norse goddess Freyja,
- selenium: named for the Moon being associated with the deity Selene,
- palladium: named for the then-recently discovered asteroid Pallas which had been named for the deity Pallas Athena,
- cerium: named for the then-recently discovered asteroid Ceres which had been named for the deity Ceres,
- europium: named for the continent that had been named after the deity Europa.
Titanium is unique in that it refers to a group of deities rather than any particular individual. So Helios, Selene, Pallas, and Prometheus actually have two elements named in their honor.
And for elements given a name connected with a group, there is also xenon, named for the Greek word ξένον (xenon), neuter singular form of ξένος (xenos), meaning 'foreign(er)', 'strange(r)', or 'guest'.[3][4] Its discoverer William Ramsay intended this name to be an indication of the qualities of this element in analogy to the generic group of people.
Gallium was discovered by French scientist Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran, who named it in honor of France ("Gallia" in Latin); allegations were later made that he had also named it for himself, as "gallus" is Latin for "le coq", but he denied that this had been his intention.[5]
See also[]
- List of scientists whose names are used as units
- List of scientists whose names are used in physical constants
- List of chemical elements named after places
- List of chemical element name etymologies
- Naming of chemical elements
- List of chemical elements
References[]
- ^ Kevin A. Boudreaux. "Derivations of the Names and Symbols of the Elements". Angelo State University.
- ^ There is an implied connection between livermorium and Ernest Lawrence since the element is named for the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.
- ^ Anonymous (1904). Daniel Coit Gilman; Harry Thurston Peck; Frank Moore Colby (eds.). The New International Encyclopædia. Dodd, Mead and Company. p. 906.
- ^ Staff (1991). The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories. Merriam-Webster, Inc. p. 513. ISBN 0-87779-603-3.
- ^ Weeks, Mary Elvira (1932). "The discovery of the elements. XIII. Some elements predicted by Mendeleeff". Journal of Chemical Education. 9 (9): 1605–1619. Bibcode:1932JChEd...9.1605W. doi:10.1021/ed009p1605.
- Naming of chemical elements
- History of science
- Lists of chemical elements
- Lists of scientists
- People involved with the periodic table
- Lists of things named after people