List of people whose names are used in chemical element names

Below is the list of people whose names are used in chemical element names. Of the 118 chemical elements, 19 are connected with the names of 20 people. 15 elements were named to honor 16 scientists. Four other elements have indirect connection to the names of non-scientists.[1] Only gadolinium and samarium occur in nature; the rest are synthetic.

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Table

The following 19 elements are connected to the names of people. Seaborg and Oganessian were the only two who were alive at the time of being honored with having elements named after them, and Oganessian is the only one still alive. The four non-scientists in this table are connected with elements that were not named to honor the individual directly but rather were named for a place or thing which in turn had been named for these people. Samarium was named for the mineral samarskite from which it was isolated. Americium, berkelium and livermorium were named after places that had been 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
62SamariumSm1879the mineral samarskite Vasili Samarsky-Bykhovets Mining engineer1803–1870Russian
64GadoliniumGd1886the mineral gadolinite Johan Gadolin Scientist1760–1852Finnish
95AmericiumAm1944the continents of the Americas Amerigo Vespucci Explorer1454–1512Italian
96CuriumCm1944
  • Scientist
  • Scientist
  • 1867–1934
  • 1859–1906
97BerkeliumBk1949the city Berkeley, California George Berkeley Philosopher1685–1753Irish
99EinsteiniumEs1952 Albert Einstein Scientist1879–1955German–Swiss
100FermiumFm1952 Enrico Fermi Scientist1901–1954Italian–American
101MendeleviumMd1955 Dmitri Mendeleev Scientist1834–1907Russian
102NobeliumNo1966 Alfred Nobel Scientist1833–1896Swedish
103LawrenciumLr1961 Ernest Lawrence Scientist1901–1958American
104RutherfordiumRf1969 Ernest Rutherford Scientist1871–1937New Zealand–British
106SeaborgiumSg1974 Glenn T. Seaborg Scientist1912–1999American
107BohriumBh1981 Niels Bohr Scientist1885–1962Danish
109MeitneriumMt1982 Lise Meitner Scientist1878–1968Austrian–Swedish
111RoentgeniumRg1994 Wilhelm Röntgen Scientist1845–1923German
112CoperniciumCn1996 Nicolaus Copernicus Scientist1473–1543Polish–German
114FleroviumFl1998the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research Georgy Flyorov Scientist1913–1990Russian
116LivermoriumLv2000the city Livermore, California, and the Lawrence Livermore Lab[2] Robert Livermore Land owner1799–1858English–Mexican
118OganessonOg2002 Yuri Oganessian Scientist1933–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.)

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 these five, that connection is indirect:

  • helium: named for the Sun where it was discovered, 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

References
  1. Kevin A. Boudreaux. "Derivations of the Names and Symbols of the Elements". Angelo State University.
  2. There is an implied connection between Livermorium and Ernest Lawrence since the element is named for the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.
  3. Anonymous (1904). Daniel Coit Gilman; Harry Thurston Peck; Frank Moore Colby (eds.). The New International Encyclopædia. Dodd, Mead and Company. p. 906.
  4. Staff (1991). The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories. Merriam-Webster, Inc. p. 513. ISBN 0-87779-603-3.
  5. 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.
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