Symbols of elements

• The symbols of a chemical element are abbreviations that are used to denote a chemical element.
• They are of one or two letters with the first letter (only) capitalized.

Dalton’s Symbols of Elements:

• Dalton was the first scientist to use the symbols to represent elements in a short way.
• Dalton’s symbols for elements were difficult to draw and inconvenient to use.

• It was J.J. Berzelius of Sweden who proposed that the first letter of the name of an element be used as its symbol.
• In the beginning, the names of elements were derived from the name of the place where they were found for the first time.

For example:

• The name copper was taken from Cyprus.
• Some names were taken from specific colours.
• Like gold was taken from the English word meaning yellow.
• Now-a-days, IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) approves the names of elements. Many of the symbols are the first one or two letters of the element’s name in English. The first letter of a symbol is always written as a capital letter (uppercase) and the second letter as a small letter (lowercase).

Modern Symbols of Elements:

• The symbol of an element is the “first letter” or the “first letter and another letter” of the English name or Latin name of the element.

The symbol of Hydrogen is H (First letter of name)

The symbol of Oxygen is O (First letter of name)

• However, the names of some elements begin with the same letter.
• Carbon, Calcium, Chlorine and Copper all begin with the same letter C second letter of the name is also used for denoting symbols.

Calcium - Ca     Copper - Cu

Chlorine - Cl     Cobalt - Co

Symbols of some elements

Latin names of the elements