(Compound Interest) - Explores how the 11 chemical symbols discussed in this Everyday Mystery received their names. (Upper Canada District School Board) -A simple list of the language and the meaning behind element names.Įlement Oddities: 11 Confusing Chemical Symbols Explained (PBS) - This video explains how the elements were given their names. (Discover Magazine) - Provides an article and infographic to help explain where names of elements come from. Author: Science Reference Section, Library of Congress Related Websites National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Institutes of Health. Check out the further reading section for books on the history of chemical elements. The etymology of element names can take you on a fantastic adventure and you might be surprised by where you end up.

We get K from the name kalium, given by the German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth, which stemmed from alkali, which stemmed from the Arabic al-qalyah, or “plant ashes.”

The word potassium stems from the English “pot ash,” which was used to isolate potassium salts. The name Tungsten itself is actually Swedish and translates into English as “heavy stone.” Wolfram comes from wolframite, which was one of the ores in which tungsten was most often found. Tungsten gets its W symbol from its German name Wolfram. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress. In A new system of chemical philosophy by John Dalton. Table of types of elements and explanation of plates showing various chemical elements and their atomic weights. For instance, hydrargyrum, the Latin name for Mercury (Hg), was taken from the original Greek hydrargyros, which meant “water silver.” Also historically known as “quicksilver,” elemental mercury is a shiny silver metal that is liquid at room temperature. For example, plumbum, Latin for Lead (Pb), is where we get the words plumber and plumbing, because lead was used in water supply pipes for centuries. Some of the names also led to other words that are common in the English language. Nearly all of these elements were known in ancient times and therefore carry over their Latin names. There are eleven elements represented in the periodic table by letters not in line with their names: National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Some elements were known in ancient times and therefore carry over their Latin names.

As element