Talk:List of chemical element name etymologies/Archive 1

Room for improvement
This page seems to be more about the circumstances of the discovery of an element than the origins of its name.
 * 1) "Actinium" apparently comes from "beam" or "ray", but why? Does actinium have something to do with light?
 * 2) "Aluminium" from "alum": why? Trawling the article aluminum, I find the sentence "In 1808, Humphry Davy identified the existence of a metal base of alum, which he at first named alumium and later aluminum ."  That's what should be here.
 * 3) "the "ع" being a nasal "a"-like phoneme. "بورون" is pronounced (booroon) or simply (boron). The last letter is definitely an "n" and not a "k/q/kh" sound.

Potassium 	K 	From the English, "potash", means "pot-ash" (Potassium compound prepared from "an alkali extracted in a pot from the ash of burnt wood or tree leaves). The symbol K is from Latin name, Kalium, was named derived from "alkali", became from the Arabic "بوتاسيوم" (al qalīy), means "the calcined ashes".

The Arabic quoted here, "بوتاسيوم" is pronounced (bootaasiioom) (Arabic has no "p", so "b" is usually substituted) - this is the Arabic rendering of (potassium) without using the special script letter for "p". The HANS WEHR Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic lists (botas), (botasaa) as being from Italian: (It. potassa) and meaning "potash".

''Sulfur 	S 	Almost certainly from the Arabic, "صفرا" (sufra), means "yellow", the bright color of the naturally occurring form. The word be descented into the Sanskrit, "गन्धक" (sulvere or sulvari), the Latin, "sulpur", the English, "sulfur", and also was commonly referred as "brimstone" in Bible, giving rise to the name of "Fire and brimstone", which are sermons where hell and eternal damnation for sinners is stressed.''

"صفرا" is pronounced (sufra) as noted and does mean "yellow" in modern usage. "गन्धक" is pronounced (gandhak) which means "sulfur" in Sanskrit/Hindi.

''Zirconium 	Zr 	From the Arabic, "ئشقنعى" (zarkûn). Derived from the Persian, "زرگون" (zargûn), means "gold like". ''

"ئشقنعى" is pronounced (ish-qn"ia). (zarkun) would look like "زركون" in Arabic script. (Interestingly, "زركش" (zarkasha) in Arabic means to embellish as with brocade. And "زرقون"(zarqun) means a bright red color.) "زرگون" is pronounced (zarkaun). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.198.161.30 (talk) 20:04, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

<!-- separate and move from mainpage, if someone want data about "Discovered History of elements" as relative topic of Naming, or for complete writing.

The first caesium metal was produced in 1881. Historically, the most important use for caesium has been in research and development, primarily in chemical and electrical applications.
 * Caesium (Cs, element 55) was spectroscopically discovered in 1860 by Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff in mineral water from Dürkheim, Germany.


 * Calcium (Ca, element 20) was actually isolated in 1808 by Sir Humphry Davy, English, through electrolyzed a mixture of lime and mercuric oxide.


 * Californium (Cf, element 98) was discovered in 1950 by University of California, Berkeley researchers led by Stanely Thompson, Kenneth Street Jr., Albert Ghiorso and Glenn T. Seaborg. Californium was the sixth trans-uranium element to be discovered and announced discovery on March, 17 1950.


 * Cerium (Ce, element 58) was discovered in 1803 by Jöns Jakob Berzelius - Wilhelm von Hisinger, Sweden, and independently by Martin Heinrich Klaproth, German.


 * Chlorine (Cl, element 17) was was discovered in 1774 by Carl Wilhelm Scheele, who mistakenly thought it contained oxygen. Chlorine was given its name in 1810 by Humphry Davy, who was insisted that it was in fact an element.


 * Copper (Cu, element 29), as the metal that Greeks was known as "chalkos", was a very important resource for the Romans and Greeks. Romans known it as "aes cyprium", "aes" being the generic Latin term for copper alloys such as bronze, etc. and "Cyprium" because so much of it was mined in Cyprus). Then, the phrase "cyprium" was simplified to "cuprum" and then eventually Anglicized into the English, "Copper".


 * Curium (Cu, element 96) was first synthesized in 1944 at the University of California, Berkeley by Glenn T. Seaborg, Ralph A. James, and Albert Ghiorso.


 * Darmstadtium (Ds, element 110) was first created on November, 9 1994 at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) of Darmstadt, Germany. It has never been seen and only a few atoms of it have been created by the nuclear fusion of isotopes of lead and nickel in a heavy Ion accelerator (nickel atoms are the ones accelerated and bombarded into the lead).

In late April 1970, Berkeley's researchers, led by Albert Ghiorso, also had positively identified element 105.
 * Dubnium (Db, element 105) was reportedly first synthesized in 1967 at Joint Institute for Nuclear Research of Dubna, Russia as element 105-260 and element 105-261 by bombarding americium-243 with neon-22).


 * Dysprosium (Dy, element 66) was first identified in 1886 by Paul Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran French chemist. However, the element was not isolated in relatively pure form until after the development of ion exchange and metallographic reduction techniques in the 1950s.


 * Einsteinium (Es, element 99) was first identified in December 1952 by Albert Ghiorso at the University of California, Berkeley and another team headed by G.R. Choppin at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Both were examining debris from the first hydrogen bomb test in November 1952 (Operation Ivy). They discovered the isotope Einsteinium-253 (half-life 20.5 days) that was made by the nuclear fusion of 15 neutrons with Uranium-238 (which then went through seven beta decays). These findings were kept secret until 1955 due to Cold War tensions, however.


 * Erbium (Er, element 68) was discovered in 1843 by Carl Gustaf Mosander. Mosander separated "Yttrium" from the mineral Gadolinite into three fractions which he called Yttria, Erbia, and Terbia.


 * Europium (Eu, element 63) was first found in 1890 by Paul Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran, who obtained basic fraction from samarium-gadolinium concentrates which had spectral lines not accounted for by Samarium or Gadolinium, however, the discovery of europium is generally credited to Eugène-Anatole Demarçay, French chemist who suspected samples of the recently discovered element Samarium (that were contaminated with an unknown element) in 1896 and was able to isolate Europium in 1901.


 * Fermium (Fm, element 100) was first discovered in 1952 by University of California, Berkeley researchers led by Albert Ghiorso as Fm-255 in the debris of the first hydrogen bomb explosion (Operation Ivy). That isotope was created when Uranium-238 combined with 17 neutrons in the intense temperature and pressure of the explosion (eight beta decays also occurred to create the element). The work was overseen by the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, and Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory.


 * Fluorine (F, element 9) in the form of calcium fluoride (CaF2) was described in 1529 by Georgius Agricola for its use as a flux, which is a substance that is used to promote the fusion of metals or minerals. In 1670 Schwandhard found that glass was etched when it was exposed to fluorspar that was treated with acid. Karl Scheele and many later researchers, including Humphry Davy, Gay-Lussac, Antoine Lavoisier, and Louis Thenard all would experiment with hydrofluoric acid, easily obtained by treating calcium fluoride (fluorspar) with concentrated sulfuric acid.


 * Francium (Fr, element 87) was discovered in 1939 by Marguerite Perey of the Curie Institute (Paris). Be the heaviest alkali metal and occurs as a result of actinium's alpha decay and can be artificially made by bombarding thorium with protons.


 * Gadolinium (Gd, element 64) was discoverd in 1880 by Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac, Swiss chemist, observed spectroscopic lines due to Gadolinium in samples of Didymium and Gadolinite, then Paul Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran, French chemist, separated Gadolinia (gadolinium(III) oxide, the oxide of Gadolinium) from Mosander's Yttria in 1886. The element was isolated only recently.

Later in 1875, Boisbaudran obtained the free metal through the electrolysis of its hydroxide in potassium hydroxide solution (KOH).
 * Gallium (Ga, element 31) ''' was discovered spectroscopically by Lecoq de Boisbaudran in 1875 by its characteristic spectrum (two violet lines) in an examination of a zinc blend from the Pyrenees.


 * Germanium (Ge, element 32) was one of the elements that Dmitri Mendeleev predicted to exist as a missing analogue of the silicon group in 1871 and called it Eka-silicon, means "one (places down from) - Silicon". The existence of this element by Clemens Winkler in 1886 was an important confirmation of Mendeleev's idea of element periodicity.


 * Gold (Au, element 79) has been well-known and highly valued since prehistoric times. It may have been the first metal used by humans and was valued for ornamentation and rituals. Egyptian hieroglyphs from as early as 2600 BC describe gold, which king Tushratta of the Mitanni claimed was as "common as dust" in Egypt. Egypt and Nubia had the resources to make them major gold-producing areas for much of history. Gold is also mentioned several times in the Old Testament.

Soon after, the element was predicted to be associated with Zirconium by using the Bohr theory and was finally found in Zircon through X-ray spectroscope analysis in Norway.
 * Hafnium (Hf, element 72) was discovered in 1923 by Dirk Coster and Georg von Hevesy, Denish.


 * Hassium (Hs, element 108) was first synthesized in 1984 by a German researchers led by Peter Armbruster and Gottfried Münzenberg at the Institute for Heavy Ion Research, Darmstadt.

Janssen was at first ridiculed since no element had ever been detected in space before being found on Earth. October 20th the same year, Norman Lockyer, English astronomer, also observed the same yellow line in the solar spectrum and concluded that it was caused by an unknown element after unsuccessfully testing to see if it were some new type of hydrogen. Since it was near the Fraunhofer D-line he later named the new line D3, distinguishing it from the nearby D1 and D2 double lines of sodium.
 * Helium (He, element 2) was first detected on August, 18 1868 as a bright yellow line with a wavelength of 587.49 nm. in the spectrum of the chromosphere of the Sun, by Pierre Janssen, French astronomer, during a total solar eclipse in India.


 * Holmium (Ho, element 67) was discovered in 1878 by Marc Delafontaine and Jacques Louis Soret who noticed the aberrant spectrographic absorption bands of the then-unknown element (they called it Element X). Later in 1878, Per Teodor Cleve independently discovered the element while he was working on Erbia earth (erbium oxide).

First recognization to Hydrogen as a discrete substance, !--Henry Cavendish or Boyle reported reaction?-- by identifying the gas from this reaction as "inflammable" and finding that the gas produces water when burned in air. Hydrogen was stumbled on Hydrogen when experimenting with acids and mercury. Although wrongly assumption that hydrogen was a compound of mercury (and not of the acid), he was still able to accurately describe several key properties of Hydrogen. Antoine Lavoisier gave the element its name and proved that water is composed of Hydrogen and Oxygen.
 * Hydrogen (H, element 1) was first produced by Theophratus Bombastus von Hohenheim (also known as Paracelsus) by mixing metals with acids. He was unaware that the explosive gas produced by chemical reaction was Hydrogen. In 1671 Robert Boyle described the reaction between two iron fillings and dilute acids, which results in the production of gaseous hydrogen.


 * Indium (In, element 49) was discovered in 1863 by Ferdinand Reich and Theodor Richter while they were testing Zinc ores with a spectrograph in research of Thallium.


 * Iodine (I, element 53) was discovered in 1811 by Barnard Courtois. He was the son of a manufacturer of saltpeter (potassium nitrate, a vital part of gunpowder). At the time France was at war, gunpowder was in great demand. Saltpeter was isolated from seaweed washed up on the coasts of Normandy and Brittany. To isolate the potassium nitrate, seaweed was burned and the ash then washed with water. The remaining waste was destroyed by adding sulfuric acid. One day Courtois added too much sulfuric acid and cloud of purple vapor rose. Courtois noted that the vapor crystallized on cold surfaces making dark crystals. Courtois suspected that this was a new element but lacked the money to pursue his observations.


 * Iridium (Ir, element 77) was discovered in 1803 by Smithson Tennant, English, along with Osmium in the dark-colored residue of dissolving crude Platinum in aqua regia (a mixture of hydrochloric and nitric acid).

In 1960 an international agreement defined the metre in terms of light emitted from a krypton isotope. This agreement replaced the longstanding standard metre located in Paris (which was a metal bar made of a platinum-iridium alloy, the bar was originally estimated to be one ten millionth of a quadrant of the earth's polar circumference). In October 1983, the krypton standard was in turn replaced by the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (International Bureau of Weights and Measures). A metre is now defined as the distance that light travels in a vacuum during 1/299,792,458 second.
 * Krypton (Kr, element 36) was discovered in 1898 by William Ramsay and Morris Travers in residue left from evaporating nearly all components of liquid air.


 * Lanthanum (La, element 57) was discovered in 1839 by Carl Mosander, when he partially decomposed a sample of cerium nitrate by heating and treating the resulting salt with dilute nitric acid. From the resulting solution, he isolated a new rare earth he called "lantana". Lanthanum was isolated in relatively pure form in 1923.

Both men found Lutetium as an impurity in the mineral Ytterbia which was thought by Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac, Swiss chemist, (and most others) to consist entirely of the element Ytterbium. The separation of Lutetium from Marignac's Ytterbium was first described by Urbain and named honor therefore went to him. He chose the names Neoytterbium (new ytterbium) for element 70 (Ytterbium) and Lutecium for the element 71, but Neoytterbium was eventually reverted back to Ytterbium, and in 1949 the spelling of element 71 was changed to Lutetium.
 * Lutetium (Lu, element 71) was independently discovered in 1907 by Georges Urbain, French scientist, and Baron Carl Auer von Welsbach, Austrian mineralogist.

Lead pipes that bear the insignia of Roman emperors are still in service and many Roman pigs (ingots) of lead figure in Derbyshire lead mining history and in the history of the industry in other English centres.
 * Lead (Pb, element 82) has been used by humans for at least 7000 years, because it be widespread and easy to extract, as well as easy to work with, being both highly malleable and ductile as well as easy to smelt.


 * Lithium (Li, element 3) was not isolated until 1818 William Thomas Brande and Sir Humphry Davy later used electrolysis on lithium oxide. Bunsen and Matiessen isolated larger quantities of the metal by electrolysis of lithium chloride in 1855. Commercial production of lithium metal was achieved in 1923 by Metallgesellschaft, the German company, through using electrolysis of molten lithium chloride and potassium chloride.


 * Magnesium (Mg, element 17) was recognized as being an element in 1755 in England by Joseph Black, then Sir Humphry Davy electrolytically isolated pure magnesium metal in 1808 from a mix of magnesia and HgO and A. A. B. Bussy prepared it in coherent form in 1831.


 * Manganese (Mn, element 25) was in use in prehistoric times as paints that were pigmented with manganese dioxide can be traced back 17,000 years. The Egyptians and Romans used manganese compounds in glass-making, to either remove color from glass or add color to it. Manganese can be found in the ores of Iron used by the Spartans. Some speculate that the exceptional hardness of Spartan steels derives from the inadvertent production of an iron-manganese alloy.


 * Mendelevium (Md, element 101) was first synthesized in early 1955 by Albert Ghiorso, Glenn T. Seaborg, Bernard Harvey, and Greg Choppin.

In China, India and Tibet, mercury use was thought to prolong life, heal fractures, and maintain generally good health. The ancient Greeks used mercury in ointments and the Roman empire used it in cosmetics. By 500 BCE mercury was used to make amalgams with other metals. Ancient alchemists often thought of mercury as the first matter from which all metals were formed. Different metals could be produced by varying the quality and quantity of sulfur contained within the mercury. An ability to transform mercury into any metal resulted from the essentially mercurial quality of all metals. The purest of these was gold, and mercury was required for the transmutation of base (or impure) metals into gold, that was a primary goal of alchemy, either for material or spiritual gain. Mercury is the only metal for which the alchemical planetary name became the common name.
 * Mercury (Hg, element 80) was known to the ancient Chinese and Hindus, and was found in Egyptian tombs that date from 1500 BC.


 * Molybdenum (Mo, element 42) is not found free in nature, and the compounds that can be found were, until the late 18th century, confused with compounds of other elements, such as Carbon or Lead. In 1778 Carl Wilhelm Scheele was able to determine that molybdenum was separate from graphite and lead, and isolated the oxide of the metal from molybdenite.


 * Neodymium (Nd, element 60) was discovered in 1885 by Baron Carl Auer von Welsbach, Austrian chemist in Vienna. He separated neodymium, as well as the element praseodymium, from a material known as didymium by means of spectroscopic analysis, however, it was not isolated in relatively pure form until 1925.


 * Neon (Ne, element 10) was discovered in 1898 by English chemists William Ramsay and Morris Travers.

Initially predicted by Walter Russell's spiral organization of the periodic table, it was found at the Berkeley Radiation Laboratory of the University of California, Berkeley where the team produced the neptunium isotope Np-239 (2.4 day half-life) by bombarding uranium with slow moving neutrons. It was the first transuranium element produced synthetically and the first actinide series transuranium element discovered.
 * Neptunium (Np, element 93) was discovered in 1940 by Edwin McMillan and Philip Abelson.

Further, there are Chinese manuscripts suggesting that "[Cupronickel|white copper]]" (i.e. baitung) was used in the Orient between 1700 and 1400 BC. However, because the ores of nickel were easily mistaken for ores of silver, any understanding of this metal and its use dates to more contemporary times. Minerals containing nickel (e.g. kupfernickel, or false copper) were of value for colouring glass green. In 1751 Baron Axel Frederik Cronstedt was attempting to extract copper from kupfernickel (now called niccolite), and obtained instead a white metal that he called nickel.
 * Nickel (Ni, element 28) was use since ancient age, can be traced back as far as 3,500 BCE. Bronzes from what is now Syria had a nickel content of up to 2 percent.

Hatchett found Niobium in Columbite ore that was sent to England in the 1750s by John Winthrop, the first governor of Connecticut. There was a considerable amount of confusion about the difference between the closely-related Niobium and Tantalum that wasn't resolved until 1846 by Heinrich Rose and Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac, who rediscovered the element. Since Rose was unaware of Hatchett's work, he gave the element a different name, Niobium. In 1864 Christian Blomstrand was the first to prepare the metal, through reducing Niobium chloride by heating it in a hydrogen atmosphere.
 * Niobium (Nb, element 41) was discovered in 1801 by Charles Hatchett.

That there was a fraction of air that did not support combustion was well known to the late 18th century chemist. Nitrogen was also studied at about the same time by Carl Wilhelm Scheele, Henry Cavendish, and Joseph Priestley, who referred to it as "burnt air" or "phlogisticated air".
 * Nitrogen (N, element 7) is formally considered to have been discovered in 1772 by Daniel Rutherford, who called it "noxious air" or "fixed air".


 * Nobelium (No, element 102) was first synthesized in April 1958 at the University of California, Berkeley by Albert Ghiorso, Glenn T. Seaborg, John R. Walton and Torbjørn Sikkeland used the new Heavy-Ion Linear Accelerator (HILAC) to bombard a Curium target (95% Cm-244 and 4.5% Cm-246) with Carbon-12 ions to make Nobelium-254 (half-life 55 seconds). Their work was confirmed by Soviet researchers of Dubna.


 * Osmium (Os, element 76) was discovered in 1803 by Smithson Tennant, English, along with Iridium in the residue of dissolving Platinum in aqua regia.

He assumed the existence of oxygen and discovered that air is not a single substance and contains a life-giving substance. He correctly identified this "the elixir of life" (or "food of life") by the gas (also oxygen) given off by heating nitre (saltpetre). This substance, the "central nitre", had a central position in Sędziwój's schema of the universe.
 * Oxygen (O, element 8) was first encountered in late 16th century by Michał Sędziwój, Polish alchemist and philosopher..

Carl Wilhelm Scheele rediscovered oxygen that he called "fire air" because it supported combustion, but he explained oxygen using phlogistical terms because he did not believe that his discovery disproved the phlogiston theory.

Joseph Priestley had generated gas by heating red mercuric oxide with a "burning lens" and named the gas "de-phlogisticated air", in accordance with the phlogiston theory which held at the time. In experiments, he managed to identify eight distinct gases, disproving the commonly held view that there was just one "air". His discovery on August, 1 1774 was published in 1775 in Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air

Antoine Lavoisier disclose and named Oxygen.


 * Palladium (Pd, element 46) was discovered in 1803 by William Hyde Wollaston, who named it in 1804.

Working in Hamburg, Brand attempted to distill salts by evaporating urine, and in the process produced a white material that glowed in the dark and burned brilliantly. Since that time, phosphorescence has been used to describe substances that shine in the dark without burning.
 * Phosphorus (P, element 15) was discovered in 1669 by German alchemist Hennig Brand through a preparation from Urine.

Platinum was discovered in 1713 – 1773 by Antonio de Ulloa and Don Jorge Juan y Santacilia, both astronomer who was appointed by King Philip V of Spain to join a geographical expedition in Peru that lasted from 1735 to 1745. Among other things, Ulloa observed the "platina del pinto", the unworkable metal found with gold in New Granada (Colombia). British privateers intercepted Ulloa's ship on the return voyage. Though he was well-treated in England, and even made a member of the Royal Society he was prevented from publishing a reference to the unknown metal until 1748. Before that could happen Charles Wood independently isolated the element in 1741.
 * Platinum (Pt, element 78) was first encountered it in Colombia, where they regarded Platinum as an unwanted impurity in the Silver that they were mining, and often discarded it.

During the Manhattan Project, large reactors were set up in Hanford, Washington for the production of Plutonium, which was used in two of the first atomic bombs (the first was tested at Trinity site, the second dropped on Nagasaki, Japan) in WW II.
 * Plutonium (Pu, element 94) was first produced in 1941 by Dr.Glenn T. Seaborg, McMillan, J. W. Kennedy, and A. C. Wahl through deuteron (H-3) bombardment of Uranium in the 60-inch cyclotron at Berkeley, but the discovery was kept secret.


 * Polonium (Po, element 84) was discovered in 1898 by Marie Curie and Pierre Curie and was later named after Marie's home land of Poland, where at the time was under Russian, Prussian and Austrian domination, and not recognized as an independent country. It was Marie's hope that naming the element after her home land would add notoriety to its plight. Polonium may be the first element named to highlight a political controversy.

In 1874 Per Teodor Cleve concluded that Didymium was in fact two elements, and in 1879, Lecoq de Boisbaudran isolated a new earth, Samarium, from didymium obtained from the mineral Samarskite. In 1885 baron Carl Auer von Welsbach, Austrian chemist, separated Didymium into two elements, Praseodymium and Neodymium, which gave salts of different colors.
 * Praseodymium (Pr, element 59) was extracted form Didymium, the rare earth from Lanthana, in 1841 by Mosander.


 * Promethium (Pm, element 91) was first predicted existence in 1902 by Bohuslav Brauner. The prediction was confirmed in 1914 by Henry Moseley.

In 1949 two groups of scientists, Otto Hahn - Lise Meitner of Germany and Frederick Soddy - John Cranston of the United Kingdom, independently discovered Pa-231.
 * Protactinium (Pa, element 91) was first identified in 1913 by Kasimir Fajans and O. H. Göhring encountered short-lived isotope Pa-234 (half-life of about 1.17 minutes) during their studies of the decay chain of U-238.

While studying Pitchblende the Curies removed Uranium from it and found that the remaining material was still radioactive. They then separated out a radioactive mixture mostly consisting of barium which gave a brilliant red flame color and spectral lines which had never been documented before. In 1902 Radium was isolated into its pure metal by Curie and Andre Debierne through the electrolysis of a pure Radium Chloride solution by using a Mercury-cathode and distilling in an atmosphere of Hydrogen gas.
 * Radium (Ra, element 88) was discovered in 1898 by Marie Curie and Pierre Curie in Pitchblende/Uraninite from North Bohemia.

In 1908 William Ramsay and Robert Whytlaw-Gray isolated, determined density and disclose that Radon be heaviest known gas, and named it "nitens", means "shining", but the name was rejected, and became into Radon since 1923.
 * Radon (Rn, element 86) was discovered in 1900 by Friedrich Ernst Dorn, who called it Radium emanation.

The existence of an as-yet undiscovered element at this position in the periodic table had been predicted by Henry Moseley in 1914. It is generally considered to be discovered in Germany by Walter Noddack, Ida Tacke, and Otto Berg. In 1925 they reported that they detected the element in Platinum ore and in the mineral Columbite. They also found Rhenium in Gadolinite and Molybdenite. In 1928 they were able to extract 1 gram of element by processing 660 kg of molybdenite.
 * Rhenium (Re, element 75) was the last naturally-occurring element to be discovered.


 * Rhodium (Rh, element 45) was discovered in 1803 by William Hyde Wollaston in England, soon after his discovery of Palladium, by using crude Platinum ore that he presumably obtained from South America.


 * Roentgenium (Rg, element 111) was first created on December, 8 1994 at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) of Darmstadt, Germany.

However the element had minimal industrial use until the 1920s. Historically, the most important use for Rubidium has been in research and development, primarily in chemical and electronic applications.
 * Rubidium (Rb, element 37) was discovered in 1861 by Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff in the mineral Lepidolite through the use of a spectroscope.

Klaus showed that ruthenium oxide contained a new metal and obtained 6 grams of Ruthenium from the part of crude Platinum that is insoluble in aqua regia.
 * Ruthenium (Ru, element 44) was discovered and isolated in 1844 by Karl Klaus.

In 1969 Berkeley's researchers produces about thousands atoms of element 104.
 * Rutherfordium (Rf, element 104) was reportedly first synthesized in August 1964.


 * Samarium (Sm, element ) was discovered spectroscopically in 1853 by Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac, Swiss chemist, through found sharp absorption lines in Didymium spectrum, and in 1879 by Paul Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran, French chemist, through isolation from the mineral Samarskite ( $$(Y,Ce,U,Fe)3(Nb,Ta,Ti)5O16$$ ).

By way of isolating he processed 10 kilograms of Euxenite with other rare earth residues, obtaining about 2 grams of very pure scandium oxide ($$Sc2O3$$).
 * Scandium (Sc, element ) apparently unaware, of that prediction in the spring of 1879 by Lars Fredrick Nilson and team, who looking for rare earth metals, using spectrum analysis, then he discovery within the minerals Euxenite and Gadolinite, and named element 21 Scandium.

In June 1974, a Soviet team led by G. N. Flerov at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research at Dubna reported producing an isotope with mass number 259 (a half-life of 0.48 s.) In September 1974, an American research team led by Albert Ghiorso at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley reported creating an isotope with mass number 263 (a half-life of 1.0 s.)
 * Seaborgium (Sg, element 111) was discovered almost simultaneously by 2 different laboratories.


 * Selenium (Se, element 34) was discovered in 1817 by Jöns Jakob Berzelius who found the element associated with Tellurium.

In 1811 Gay Lussac and Thénard probably prepared impure amorphous silicon through the heating of potassium with silicon tetrafluoride. In 1824 Berzelius prepared amorphous silicon using approximately the same method of Lussac. Berzelius also purified the product by repeatedly washing it.
 * Silicon (Si, element ) was first identified in 1787 by Antoine Lavoisier, and was later mistaken in 1800 by Humphry Davy for a compound.


 * Silver (Ag, element 47) has been known since ancient times. It is mentioned in the book of Genesis, and slag heaps found in Asia minor and on the islands of the Aegean Sea indicate that silver was being separated from Lead as early as the 4th millennium BCE.

In medieval Europe a compound of sodium with the Latin name of Sodanum was used as a headache remedy.
 * Sodium (Na, element 11) has long been recognized in compounds, but was not isolated until 1807 by Sir Humphry Davy through the electrolysis of caustic soda (NaOH).


 * Strontium (Sr, element 38) was discovered in 1798 by Adair Crawford because he researched Strontianite, the mineral that was named after the Scottish town of Strontian, as differing from other Barium minerals in 1790. Later, the metallic strontium was first isolated in 1808 by Sir Humphry Davy using electrolysis.


 * Sulfur (S, element 16) was known since the ancient times, and is referred to in the Biblical Pentateuch (book of Genesis) that hell is believed to smell of sulfur.

Early investigators were only able to isolate impure metal and the first relatively pure ductile metal was produced in 1903 by Werner von Bolton. Wires made with Tantalum metal were used for light bulbs until Tungsten replaced it.
 * Tantalum (Ta, element 73) was discovered in 1802 by Anders Ekeberg and isolated in 1820 by Jöns Berzelius, Swedish. Many contemporary chemists believed Niobium and Tantalum were the same elements until 1844 and later 1866 when researchers showed that niobic and tantalic acids were different compounds.

In 1877 Serge Kern, Russian chemist, reported discovery of the missing element in Platinum ore. Kern named the element Davyum after Sir Humphry Davy, English chemist, but it was determined to be a mixture of Iridium, Rhodium and Iron. In 1908 Masataka Ogawa, Japanese chemist, found evidence in the mineral Thorianite for what he expect indicated the presence of element 43 and named it Nipponium after "Nippon", means "Japan". But later analysis indicated Rhenium (element 75). Not only that, there were a lot of other mis-discovery, such as, "Polinium" (1828) but be Iridium, "Ilmenium" (1846) but be Niobium, Lucium (1896) but be Yttrium, etc. Untill Technetium was isolated by Carlo Perrier and Emilio Segrè in 1937.
 * Technetium (Tc, element 43) was expected to first discovered more than other Mendeleev's predicted elements, but numerous mistake occurred during race age of discovery.


 * Tellurium (Te, element 52) was discovered in 1782 by Müller Ferenc, Hungarian in Transylvania. In 1798 it was named by Martin Heinrich Klaproth who earlier isolated it.

It was not isolated in pure form until the recent advent of ion exchange techniques.
 * Terbium (Tb, element 65) was discovered in 1843 by Carl Gustaf Mosander, Swedish chemist, who detected it as an impurity in Yttrium-oxide (Y2O3) and named it.

In 1862 Crookes and Claude-Auguste Lamy isolated the metal independent of each other.
 * Thallium (Tl, element 81) was discovered in 1861 by Sir William Crookes, English, while he was making spectroscopic determinations for tellurium on residues from a sulfuric acid plant.

The metal had virtually no uses until the invention of the lantern mantle in 1885. The former name Ionium was given early in the study of radioactive elements to Th-230 isotope produced in the decay chain of Uranium-238 before it was realized that Ionium and Thorium were chemically identical.
 * Thorium (Th, element 90) was discovered in 1828 by the Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius.

(this was the same method Carl Gustaf Mosander earlier used to discover some other rare earths elements) Cleve started by removing all of the known contaminants of erbia (Er2O3) and upon additional processing, obtained two new substances, one brown and one green. The brown substance turned out to be the oxide of the element holmium and was named holmia by Cleve and the green substance was the oxide of an unknown element. He named the oxide Thulia and the element Thulium.
 * Thulium (Tm, element 69) was discovered in 1879 by Per Teodor Cleve, Swedish chemist, while looking for impurities in the oxides of other rare earth elements.

He recognised the presence of a new element in Ilmenite, and named it Menachite. At same time, Franz Joseph Muller also produced a similar substance, but could not identify it. The element was independently rediscovered several years later by Martin Heinrich Klaproth, German chemist, in Rutile ore. Klaproth confirmed it as a new element and named it Titanium in 1795.
 * Titanium (Ti, element 22) was discovered by Reverend William Gregor in 1791.

In 1781 Carl Wilhelm Scheele ascertained that a new acid could be made from Tungstenite. Scheele and Torbern Bergman suggested that it could be possible to obtain a new metal by reducing tungstic acid. In 1783 José and Fausto Elhuyar found an acid in wolframite that was identical to tungstic acid. In Spain later that year the brothers succeeded in isolating tungsten through reduction of this acid with charcoal. They are credited with the discovery of the element.
 * Tungsten (W, element 74) was first hypothesized to exist in 1779 by Peter Woulfe who examined Wolframite and concluded that it must contain a new substance.

It was first isolated as a metal in 1841 by Eugene-Melchior Peligot. In 1850 the first commercial use of Uranium in glass was developed by Lloyd & Summerfield of Birmingham England. Uranium was found to be radioactive in 1896 by Henri Becquerel, French physicist who discovered the process of radioactivity with uranium minerals.
 * Uranium (U, element 92) was discover by credited to the German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth who in 1789 found uranium as part of the mineral called pitchblende.


 * vanadium (V, element 23) was isolated in 1867 by Henry Enfield Roscoe who reduced vanadium(III) chloride (VCl3) with Hydrogen.


 * Xenon (Xe, element 54) was discovered in England in 1898 by William Ramsay and Morris Travers in the residue left over from evaporating components of liquid air.

In 1843 Carl Mosander was able to show that Yttria actually could be divided into the oxides (or earths) of three different elements. The most basic one was calld Yttria and the others were named Erbia and Terbia.
 * Yttrium (Y, element 39) was discovered in 1794 by Johan Gadolin in a form of Yttria, the compounds in Gadolinite, the mineral from Ytterby.

In 1828 Friedrich Wohler was isolated Yttrium as an impure extract of Yttria through the reduction of "yttrium anhydrous chloride" (YCl3) with Potassium.

In 1907 Georges Urbain isolated 2 new elements, element 70 and element 71, from Ytterbia. He called element 70 Neoytterbia (means "new ytterbium") and called element 71 Lutecia. At about the same time, Baron Carl Auer von Welsbach also independently isolated these from Ytterbia.
 * Ytterbium (Yb, element 70) was discovered in 1878 by Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac in a form of compound in Erbia, the earth, and named it Ytterbia. Later he assumed that Ytterbia was a compound of a new element he ahead called Ytterbium.

Latest Neoytterbia (element 70) was eventually reverted back to Ytterbium (follow Marignac) and in 1949 the spelling of Lutetium (element 71) was changed to Lutetium. Although German chemists still call Cassiopium instead of Lutetium.


 * Zirconium (Zr, element 40) was discovered in 1789 by Martin Heinrich Klaproth and isolated in 1824 by Jöns Jakob Berzelius.

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Greek words
Got no time to inspect the article myself, but I remark that nearly all the Greek words in it are blatantly incorrect and inexistent in the form given. They were obviously inserted by someone who knows nothing about the language. However, the Greek etymologies are pretty much correct in general (their latin transliterations, at least). Omnipedian (talk) 18:00, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Element numbers
I just discovered this page, found it fascinating, and intend to return! One improvement I would very much like to see is the addition of atomic numbers (perhaps even in a sortable column). I am tempted to do this myself, and might actually get around to doing so -- especially if I had a bit of encouragement, and perhaps also someone who would look at my changes to catch any major goofs. (My Wikipedia edits have included a few table changes, but I've never added an entire column to a large table.) Tripodics (talk) 17:54, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Wolframite - After Peter Woulfe?
Not according to the article that is linked - which says the name derives from the German "Wolf Cream"? Just thought I'd bring that up. Also sorry for not editing this properly - new to wikipedia! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.229.229.183 (talk) 09:56, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Iron - Crazy speculation
I’m going to remove the suggestion that Anglo-Saxon īsern is related to Etruscan aisar. Just because somebody speculated about a (very unlikely) link doesn’t make it an etymology. It’s just speculation! The citation is also inadequate (Benvéniste 1969 cit. dep) and was added as a hidden comment in the second edit to this page in the history. --☸ Moilleadóir ☎ 13:40, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Sulphur — Sulvāri/çulvāri/गन्धक (gandhaka)
I’m beginning to wonder if sulvāri is some kind of phantom (or completely made-up) etymology. As user…ahem…71.198.161.30 pointed out 7 years ago गन्धक is gandhak(a) not sulvāri. The citation links to Google Books often aren’t very helpful as you can’t always find or read the relevant text, but lets look at the citations.

Skeat
Skeat does not include the word in his list of words derived from Sanskrit on page 658.

Google returns 6 results for the spelling çulvāri, 5 of which are from the same site who all reference the one other result, Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary…

[L. sulphur; said to be conn. with Sans. çulvāri.]

Not sounding very certain!

Magill
The Google Books citation for Magill's Survey of Science only provides the most glancing of references to etymology. I don’t think this can be used as a citation at all.

Sulfur is one of the handful of elements known as elements since ancient times. This fact is reflected in the name itself, which comes to us from Sanskrit via Latin, and refers in meaning only to the element itself, not to its origin or chemical properties (as do “francium” and “germanium,” for example, and “silicon”—from “flint,” silex.)

Skinner
The Google Books citation doesn’t return any results for the linked search (“sulphur sanskrit”). It does return a result for “sulphur sanskrit” but it’s only a match for “sanskrit” in a completely different topic.

The Hathi Trust provides access to a scanned copy though…

SULPHUR Latin—sulfur, brimstone. The name may have been derived from the Sanskrit name for sulphur, culvari. There is no connection with any Greek root, the Greek term for sulphur being θεῖον, divine. 

A review of the 1970 re-issue of the book remarks on its many inaccuracies, so I have doubts about its usefulness. The removal of the cedilla on the c is a bad sign.

Wiktionary
Wiktionary tackles etymology under two entries—the canonical scientific spelling sulfur and under the Classical Latin spelling sulphur.

sulfur
English Etymology From Middle English, from Anglo-Norman sulfre, from Latin sulfur, itself of uncertain origin. Displaced Old English swefel.

…

Latin Etymology From a Proto-Indo-European root meaning “to burn.” But compare Old Armenian ծծումբ ‎(ccumb, “sulfur”).

sulphur
Latin Alternative forms
 * sulpur (archaic)
 * sulfur (late-Classical)

Etymology From a Hellenisation of earlier sulpur, from Proto-Indo-European *swelplos, from the root *swel- ‎(“to burn, smoulder”).

Based on all of the above I’ll remove references to Sanskrit. They can always be put back if someone can come up with some authoritative sources.

--☸ Moilleadóir ☎ 05:08, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Problems
Like Dawn Davenport this page has lots of problems. Being a table is good, but it seems people forget what the column headings are and just dump stuff where they like resulting in the simplified categories of the columns either being overwhelmed with detail or misused. E.g. under Iron how does “descriptive: Anglo-Saxon” explain the origin of the symbol Fe? The more you look at it the worse it gets. --☸ Moilleadóir ☎ 06:13, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Systematic and other former names
Should the the etymology of former names be included here? I suggest that they add little value in the table, certainly not in proportion to the added length. Perhaps they can be omitted by adding separate info, either as an added paragraph or as two entries in the table itself - one for the IUPAC systematic names and one for eka-*. YBG (talk) 05:25, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20131004225019/http://www.wordnik.com/words/Thule/etymologies to http://www.wordnik.com/words/Thule/etymologies

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Potassium etymology
The Arabic word transliterated as "al kaliy" actually reads as "butasium". Someone apparently copied the Arabic word for "potassium" without knowing how to read Arabic.

Would someone who can type in Arabic please type the "Al kaliy" in Arabic characters and add it to the potassium etymology? Crystal whacker (talk) 23:03, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

القلي EbruAsena (talk) 12:59, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the typing, User:EbruAsena. The article looks like it was updated a while ago and currently matches what you wrote. DMacks (talk) 11:50, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Symbol origin
What's up with the "Symbol origin" column? It seems weirdly inconsistent and unneeded. Most of these just say what kind of name it is, not the origin. Most of the symbols are just abbreviations of the element names anyway, and the elements whose symbols actually differ from their names seem to all have the explanation for their symbol in the "Description" column instead. PointlessUsername (talk) 21:28, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Improvements to consider
While building the new template, I found these items worth considering:


 * Almost all references are to be checked for availability, correctness, statement used in context content.
 * OEtymD (Harper, Douglas, Online Etymology Dictionary) has a deprecated note.


 * For readability, we could consider removing the foreign-script spellings ("Greek νέος (neos), meaning "new".") OR move use these in the single-word cells only ("Original word").


 * Note that the current setup has much repetition: original word, its language, transliteration and meaning are mentioned twice.


 * The repetitive descriptions (Ytterby, eka-, Uxx) could be handled differently: create separate text blocks, verbose description (not as a footnote). Then #link to these from the table.


 * There are multiple other areticles that do this etymology (all or partly). These could be merged, or at least they should be synchrinised.


 * I am open for more layout improvements. Thoughts?

-DePiep (talk) 13:18, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

List into template table (14 August 2021)
I have replaced the in-article table list with de new, dedicated template List of chemical element name etymologies. Using templates adds ease of formatting and comparing texts. These are the changes:
 * The template uses subtemplates (/row) to take care of table formatting (rows, cells, presentation).


 * I have redesigned the row-layout, mainly to improve mobile view and to use info already available (simple words and verbose text). The old, clunky layout made it nigh inmpossible to read the text easily (scrolling required). It now has wider space for the verbose texts, which should make reading more comfortable.


 * Text units about symbol-etymology ('Hg') and former names ('eka-silicon') have separate entries.


 * Formatting words: using lang, transl and  (=meaning) to format word semantics. Also use italics when about the word itself ("The English word soda"). Also used cuneiform, PIE.


 * Rephrased sentences, for example to make them more similar throughout the list.


 * Cleanup reference formatting (did not check for correctness though).


 * Content changes: to compare old content with new content, see archive List of chemical element name etymologies/2020. '2020' is a simplified ID for the old version (actually 13 Aug 2021).


 * Added: each element has an anchor by symbol (so one can link like  )


 * Not done: see notes below.


 * Comments?


 * -DePiep (talk) 13:09, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

has objected to this announced change, to which nobody objected at the time, by undoing it and nominating both Template:List of chemical element name etymologies and its helper-templates for deletion. DMacks (talk) 15:39, 23 February 2022 (UTC)