Chemical element abbreviation patterns
I've wondered occasionally about the patterns in how chemical elements are abbreviated. If you don't know the abbreviation for an element, is there a simple algorithm that would let you narrow the range of possibilities or improve your odds at guessing?
Here's a survey of how the elements are abbreviated.
Latin and GermanThe elements that have been known the longest often have abbreviations that are mnemonic in Latin.
- Iron (Fe)
- Sodium (Na)
- Silver (Ag)
- Tin (Sn)
- Antimony (Sb)
- Tungsten (W)
- Gold (Au)
- Mercury (Hg)
- Lead (Pb)
- Potassium (K)
- Copper (Cu)
I included Tungsten in this section because it also has an abbreviation that is mnemonic in another language, in this case German.
Initial letterThe easiest abbreviations to remember are simply the first letters of the element names (in English).
- Boron (B)
- Carbon (C)
- Fluorine (F)
- Hydrogen (H)
- Iodine (I)
- Nitrogen (N)
- Oxygen (O)
- Phosphorus (P)
- Sulfur (S)
- Uranium (U)
- Vanadium (V)
- Yttrium (Y)
The largest group of elements are those abbreviated by the first two letters of their name. When in doubt, guess the first two letters.
- Actinium (Ac)
- Aluminum (Al)
- Americium (Am)
- Argon (Ar)
- Barium (Ba)
- Beryllium (Be)
- Bismuth (Bi)
- Bromine (Br)
- Calcium (Ca)
- Cerium (Ce)
- Chlorine (Cl)
- Cobalt (Co)
- Dysprosium (Dy)
- Erbium (Er)
- Europium (Eu)
- Flerovium (Fl)
- Francium (Fr)
- Gallium (Ga)
- Germanium (Ge)
- Helium (He)
- Holmium (Ho)
- Indium (In)
- Iridium (Ir)
- Krypton (Kr)
- Lanthanum (La)
- Lithium (Li)
- Lutetium (Lu)
- Molybdenum (Mo)
- Neon (Ne)
- Nickel (Ni)
- Nobelium (No)
- Oganesson (Og)
- Osmium (Os)
- Polonium (Po)
- Praseodymium (Pr)
- Radium (Ra)
- Rhodium (Rh)
- Ruthenium (Ru)
- Scandium (Sc)
- Selenium (Se)
- Silicon (Si)
- Tantalum (Ta)
- Tellurium (Te)
- Thorium (Th)
- Titanium (Ti)
- Xenon (Xe)
Many of these elements use the first two letters to avoid a conflict with the first letter. For example, helium uses He because hydrogen already took H.
There are several elements that start with the same letter, and no element uses just the first letter. For example: actinium, aluminum, americium, and argon.
Xenon could have been X, or dysprosium could have been just D, but that's not how it was done.
First letter and next consonantThe next largest group of elements are abbreviated by their first letter and the next consonant, skipping over a vowel.
- Bohrium (Bh)
- Cadmium (Cd)
- Cesium (Cs)
- Dubnium (Db)
- Gadolinium (Gd)
- Hafnium (Hf)
- Hassium (Hs)
- Livermorium (Lv)
- Magnesium (Mg)
- Manganese (Mn)
- Meitnerium (Mt)
- Neodymium (Nd)
- Neptunium (Np)
- Nihonium (Nh)
- Niobium (Nb)
- Rubidium (Rb)
- Samarium (Sm)
- Technetium (Tc)
- Zinc (Zn)
- Zirconium (Zr)
Many of these elements would cause a conflict if they had been abbreviated using one of the above rules. For example, cadmium could not be C because that's carbon, and it could not be Ca because that's calcium.
Initials of first two syllables- Astatine (At)
- Berkelium (Bk)
- Darmstadtium (Ds)
- Einsteinium (Es)
- Fermium (Fm)
- Lawrencium (Lr)
- Mendelevium (Md)
- Moscovium (Mc)
- Platinum (Pt)
- Promethium (Pm)
- Roentgenium (Rg)
- Terbium (Tb)
- Thallium (Tl)
- Californium (Cf)
- Copernicium (Cn)
- Palladium (Pd)
- Rutherfordium (Rf)
- Seaborgium (Sg)
- Tennessine (Ts)
- Ytterbium (Yb)
- Curium (Cm)
- Radon (Rn)
- Thulium (Tm)
- Arsenic (As)
- Chromium (Cr)
- Plutonium (Pu)
- Protactinium (Pa)
- Rhenium (Re)
- Strontium (Sr)
- Regular expression to match any element
- Chemical element frequency in prose
- ElementFact Twitter account