What's in a Name?

Picture this: You’re a physicist who has found a brand-new element. Now you get to decide what to call it. Maybe you’d name it after a mythological creature, something like unicornium. Or how about a state? Texasium has a nice ring to it. What about naming it after yourself?

It turns out that any of those names would be fine, according to the rules of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). This group oversees changes to the periodic table. It recently announced the names of four newly discovered elements: 113, 115, 117, and 118 (see The 5 Rules of Naming). Here’s what it took for scientists to find, confirm, and name them.

Picture this: You’re a physicist, and you’ve found a brand-new element. Now you get to decide what to call it. Maybe you’d name it after a mythological creature, something like unicornium. Or how about a state? Texasium has a nice ring to it. What about naming it after yourself?

It turns out that any of those names would be perfectly fine. They all follow the rules of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). This organization oversees changes to the periodic table. It recently announced the names of four newly discovered elements: 113, 115, 117, and 118 (see The 5 Rules of Naming). Here’s what it took for scientists to find, confirm, and name them.

The periodic table contains 118 known elements. Of those elements, 94 are found naturally on Earth. But the other 24 can only be made in a lab.

Making a new element isn’t easy. Scientists do it by smashing positively charged particles, called protons, into an atom’s nucleus, or center, at extremely high speeds. If enough protons stick to the atom’s nucleus, they can create an element that has never been seen before. These new elements last only from fractions of a second to minutes before they break down, though.

The periodic table contains 118 known elements. Ninety-four of those are found naturally on Earth. But the other 24 can only be made in a lab.

Making a new element isn’t easy. Scientists do it by smashing positively charged particles, called protons, into an atom’s nucleus, or center. The crash occurs at extremely high speeds. If enough protons stick to the atom’s nucleus, they can create an element never seen before. But these new elements last only from fractions of a second to minutes. Then they break down.

It can take years for IUPAC to approve a new element. That’s because other researchers need time to confirm the results of the experiment that created it. In the meantime, the element gets a temporary Latin name based on its atomic number—the number of protons in an atom’s nucleus. Element 113, for example, was called ununtrium, Latin for one, one, three.

It can take years for IUPAC to approve a new element. Other researchers need time to confirm the results of the experiment that created it. Until then, the element gets a temporary Latin name based on its atomic number. That’s the number of protons in the nucleus. Element 113 was called ununtrium. In Latin, that means one, one, three.

IUPAC says scientists must name new elements after one of five things: a place, a scientist, a mineral, a property of the element, or a reference to mythology.

IUPAC says scientists must name new elements after one of five things. They can choose a place, a scientist, a mineral, a property of the element, or a reference to mythology.

Three of the new elements are named after the places where they were discovered. Element 113’s name, nihonium (Nh), comes from Nihon, a Japanese word for Japan. Element 115, or moscovium (Mc), is named for Moscow, Russia. Element 117, tennessine (Ts), is named after Tennessee. The fourth element, 118 or oganesson (Og), is named after Yuri Oganessian, a Russian nuclear physicist who helped discover it.

Even though the names are up to the discoverers, IUPAC was flooded with suggestions from the public, says Lynn Soby, the organization’s executive director. “It was great to see so many people around the world getting excited about chemistry,” she says. 

Three of the new elements are named after the places where they were discovered. Element 113’s name, nihonium (Nh), comes from Nihon. That’s a Japanese word for Japan. Element 115, or moscovium (Mc), is named for Moscow, Russia. Element 117, tennessine (Ts), is named after Tennessee. Element 118, or oganesson (Og), is named after Yuri Oganessian. He’s a Russian nuclear physicist who helped discover it.

The names are up to the discoverers. But IUPAC was flooded with suggestions from the public, says Lynn Soby. She’s the organization’s executive director. "It was great to see so many people around the world getting excited about chemistry,” she says.