Element 118 has been named oganesson in honour of nuclear physicist Yuri Oganessian. Only 17 people have joined this exclusive club, and often not without a fight

Pierre and Marie Curie conducted pioneering work on radioactivity Alamy Stock Photo

When the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry named element 118 in honour of nuclear physicist Yuri Oganessian, it was continuing a long but fractious tradition. Only 17 people have been honoured this way, often after years of wrangling. Welcome to perhaps the most exclusive club in science.

Read more: Mr Element 118: The only living person on the periodic table Russian physicist Yuri Oganessian has had new element 118 named after him, and he says the superheavy stuff could send shock waves through the atomic world

Samarium and gadolineum – elements 62 and 64

The first person to have an element named after him was not a scientist but a mining engineer, and it was probably by accident. In 1879, chemist Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran isolated a new metallic element from the mineral samarskite. He called it samarium, perhaps unaware that he was immortalising Vasili Samarsky-Bykhovets, a former chief of the Russian Mining Engineering Corps after whom the mineral was named.


Johan Gadolin discovered the first rare earth element Finlands Nat:mus

A year later Finnish mineralogist Johan Gadolin was the beneficiary of a similar stroke of luck. A mineral named after him, gadolinite, yielded a new metallic element, later named gadolinium.

Curium – element 96

In 1940, scientists on the Manhattan Project synthesised the first elements heavier than uranium – known as transuranium elements. That also meant they had to dream up new names, and they started with the obvious – neptunium and plutonium. Three years later they had to look beyond the planets, when a team led by Glenn Seaborg at the University of California, Berkeley, created elements 95 and 96. They jokingly called them delirium and pandemonium, but later settled on americium (after the Americas) and curium, after Marie and Pierre Curie. The Curies thus became the first scientists to be deliberately honoured in the periodic table.

Dmitri Mendeleev came up with a predictive version of the periodic table of elements Ria Novosti/Science Photo Library

Einsteinium, fermium and mendelevium – elements 99, 100 and 101

After the second world war, Seaborg and his colleagues continued their quest to synthesise ever-heavier transuranium elements. Between 1949 and 1955 they created elements 97 to 101 in an orderly sequence. The first two got place names (berkelium and californium) but the next three cemented the tradition of honouring great scientists: Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi and Dmitri Mendeleev, the inventor of the periodic table.

Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, among many other things Library of Congress/Science Photo Library

Nobelium? Joliotium? Florovium? Element 102

In 1957, Swedish scientists broke the US stranglehold on new elements by announcing the synthesis of element 102. They named it nobelium after local hero Alfred Nobel. It later transpired that they had not created the element, so bragging – and naming – rights fell to the USSR’s Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna. It proposed the name joliotium after Irène Joliot-Curie, Marie and Pierre Curie’s daughter, but nobelium had already got its feet under the table, leading to years of confusion and squabbling.

Georgy Flerov discovered spontaneous fission Sputnik/Science Photo Library

In 1994, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry controversially ruled in favour of nobelium, but then flipped to a compromise name, flerovium, after Soviet physicist Georgy Flerov. In 1997, it officially switched back to nobelium on the grounds that it was what everyone was calling the element anyway.

Ernest Rutherford is often thought of as the father of nuclear physics Library of Congress/Science Photo Library

Lawrencium and rutherfordium – elements 103 and 104

It was now the 1960s and competition between US and Russian teams began in earnest. Both claimed to have synthesised element 103; the Americans proposed lawrencium after Ernest Lawrence, the inventor of the cyclotron, while the Russians suggested rutherfordium after Ernest Rutherford, the “father of nuclear physics”. Element 104 was also the subject of a naming dispute, with the Americans perversely suggesting rutherfordium and the Soviets suggesting kurchatovium in honour of physicist Igor Kurchatov. In the end, the US suggestions won out.

Glenn Seaborg won the chemistry Nobel in 1951 for his work on transuranium elements Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory/SPL

Seaborgium – element 106

When element 106 was synthesised at the University of California in 1974, the US team offered the Soviets an olive branch: they would propose the name kurchatovium. But relations soured and the US team withdrew the offer. They considered honouring Isaac Newton, Thomas Edison, Leonardo da Vinci, Ferdinand Magellan and George Washington, but eventually settled on their own leader, Glenn Seaborg. Cue another naming controversy: in a clear breach of precedent, Seaborg was still alive. The controversy raged until 1997 when seaborgium was adopted. Seaborg died shortlly after.

Bohrium, Meitnerium, Roentgenium, Copernicum – elements 107, 109, 111 and 112

In comparison to the rows over elements 102 to 106 – sometimes known as the Transfermium Wars – the naming of these elements was a beatific affair. Aside from a minor kerfuffle over whether to go for nielsbohrium or bohrium, Niels Bohr, Lise Meitner, Ernst Roentgen and Nicholas Copernicus were admitted to the club with little controversy.

Flerovium – element 114

Originally proposed as a compromise for element 102, flerovium eventually found its way into the table in 2012 as the name of element 114. It officially honours the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions in Dubna, Russia, but that is named after Russian physicist Georgy Flerov, who in 1942 wrote to Stalin urging him to start an atom bomb programme.

Oganessan – element 118

The latest new element, and one that may break the periodic table, is named after physicist Yuri Oganessian, who heads up the Flerov lab. The current roll of honour thus comprises 17 people (because curium is named after two), 15 men and two women. But Oganessian is the only one alive. So we went to speak to him.

Read more: Mr Element 118: The only living person on the periodic table

