Element Names in English

Question

Na - Sodium - Natrium

K - Potassium - Kalium

W - Tungsten - Wolfram

Sb - Antimony - Stibium

and so forth.

[English only] Why do we not use the names that match the symbols?

Answer 1

There are several reasons for this, one of which is the pigeon-hole effect. The English language consists of only 26 letters, while nature contains more than 90 elements. The letters would become repetitive if only English names were used. Secondly, English is a latecomer as a global language of science. It is a recent phenomenon dating back to the 1900s. Early chemists were comfortable with Latin/Greek perhaps due to religious norms and education of the day. Secondly, other European languages like German and French dominated chemical knowledge and chemists had to learn at least one of them. So all these symbols were "natural" for the older generation.

Sodium and potassium were discovered by Davy, an English speaker, and he wrote "Potassium and Sodium are the names by which I have ventured to call the two new substances" in H. Davy, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 98, 32 (1807). However, "Natrium" compounds were well known in French, particularly Natron (sodium carbonate), at least two centuries earlier. What is natural then? Continue with the natural names or make up a new English symbol. What symbol can one use for sodium, S, but like the pigeon-hole effect it will overlap with sulfur, "So" is an English conjunction, perhaps it would cause more confusion. The same holds true for potassium, (Kalium and eventually from the Arabic Kali), its compounds were well known. German chemists had no issue with Natrium and Kalium (Na and K) because the names are still used. Wolfram is also natural to Germans, as is its symbol W, due to the fact that the mineral is well-known.

Answer 2

In the $18$th and $19$th century, there was a strong rivalry between chemists of France, Germany and England, specially about giving a symbol to newly found elements. If a French chemist had discovered and given a name to a new element, the German and English had to accept it, but they often proposed another name, and another symbol, just not to obey to "the enemy". If you read old French publications from the $19$th century, you may find formula like SoCl for sodium chloride. Beryllium Be was called Glucinium Gl in France up to late in the middle of the $20$th century. This stupid rivalry was finished after WWI, in $1919$, when IUPAC was created, where delegates from the world over met just to define a unique symbol for each element. Unfortunately they failed to give a common name. But they succeeded in defining a common symbol.