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. Names were proposed to honor Einstein and Fermi while they were still alive, but they had both died by the time those names became official.[2]

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
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 Marie Curie Scientist1867–1934Polish–French
Pierre Curie Scientist1859–1906French
97BerkeliumBk1949Berkeley, California and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory George Berkeley Philosopher1685–1753Irish
99EinsteiniumEs1952 Albert Einstein Scientist1879–1955German–Swiss
100FermiumFm1953 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
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
114FleroviumFl1999the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research Georgy Flyorov Scientist1913–1990Russian
116LivermoriumLv2000Livermore, California, and Lawrence Livermore Lab[3] Robert Livermore Land owner1799–1858English–Mexican
118OganessonOg2002 Yuri Oganessian Scientist1933–Russian-Armenian

Other connections

Other element names connected with people (real or mythological) have been proposed but failed to gain official international recognition. The following such names received past significant use among scientists:

Names had also been suggested (but not used) to honour Henri Becquerel (becquerelium) and Paul Langevin (langevinium).[4][5] George Gamow, Lev Landau, and Vitalii Goldanski (who was alive at the time) were suggested for consideration for honoring with elements during the Transfermium Wars, but were not actually proposed.[2]

(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 characters. With some, that connection is indirect:

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'.[6][7] 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.[8]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kevin A. Boudreaux. "Derivations of the Names and Symbols of the Elements". Angelo State University.
  2. 1 2 Hoffman, D.C; Ghiorso, A.; Seaborg, G.T. (2000). The Transuranium People: The Inside Story. Imperial College Press. pp. 187–189, 385. ISBN 978-1-86094-087-3.
  3. ↑ There is an implied connection between livermorium and Ernest Lawrence since the element is named for Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.
  4. ↑ "Chemistry : Periodic Table : darmstadtium : historical information". January 17, 2005. Archived from the original on January 17, 2005.
  5. ↑ "115-ый элемент Унунпентиум может появиться в таблице Менделеева". oane.ws (in Russian). 28 August 2013. Retrieved 23 September 2015. В свою очередь, российские физики предлагают свой вариант – ланжевений (Ln) в честь известного французского физика-теоретика прошлого столетия Ланжевена.
  6. ↑ Anonymous (1904). Daniel Coit Gilman; Harry Thurston Peck; Frank Moore Colby (eds.). The New International Encyclopædia. Dodd, Mead and Company. p. 906.
  7. ↑ Staff (1991). The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories. Merriam-Webster, Inc. p. 513. ISBN 0-87779-603-3.
  8. ↑ 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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