Periodic Table Quiz
Symbols, names and atomic numbers, with distractors drawn from nearby elements. Eleven symbols come from Latin, not English.
The symbols that do not match their names
Eleven elements take their symbol from Latin, German or Greek rather than English. They account for a large share of wrong answers.
Why the numbering has no gaps
The atomic number is simply the count of protons in the nucleus, so it cannot skip — element 43 had to exist even when nobody had found it, and technetium was eventually made rather than discovered. That is why the table runs contiguously from hydrogen at 1 to oganesson at 118 with no holes, and why Mendeleev could confidently leave gaps and predict what would fill them. The distractors in this quiz are drawn from nearby atomic numbers rather than at random, which makes the questions harder and rather fairer.
Fewer than half the symbols are just the start of the name
Sorting all 118 by how the symbol relates to the English name gives a clean three-way split:
| Relationship | Count | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| The symbol starts the English name | 57 | H He Li Be B |
| First letter plus a later one | 50 | Mg Cl Cr Mn Zn |
| Not from the English name at all | 11 | Na K Fe Cu Ag Sn Sb W Au Hg Pb |
Only 57 of 118 are a straight prefix, so 61 need something more than reading the first letters off the name. The 11 that come from another language are the famous ones — sodium from natrium, potassium from kalium, tungsten from wolfram — and they get all the attention. The 50 in the middle get none, and they are more than four times as numerous. Magnesium is Mg rather than Ma, and chlorine is Cl rather than Ch: when several elements share a first letter the second has to distinguish them, and it is taken from later in the word rather than simply being the next one along.
Twelve symbols begin with C, and none at all with J or Q
| First letter | Symbols |
|---|---|
| C | 12 |
| N | 9 |
| P | 9 |
| S | 9 |
| T | 9 |
| A | 8 |
C carries 12, with N, P, S, T tied behind it on nine each. With 118 elements spread over 24 usable letters the average is 4.9, so C is carrying more than twice its share — which is exactly why its members need distinguishing second letters. J and Q never begin a symbol at all. Neither is common in Latin or Greek, and neither has been needed.
Length tells the same story from another angle: 14 symbols are a single letter and 104 are a pair, with nothing longer. The single letters average atomic number 26 against 64 for the pairs — they went to the elements known longest, before the alphabet got crowded. None of which applies to the atomic numbers, which run 1 to 118 with no gaps and no surprises. The numbering is the easy half of this quiz and the symbols are the hard half — and now you know which 61 to expect trouble from.
How to use
- Pick a question type — symbol, name or atomic number.
- Choose from four options; the wrong ones are nearby elements.
- Narrow the scope to the first 36 to start, or to the tricky symbols.
- Watch the streak counter rather than the total.
Frequently asked questions
Why does sodium have the symbol Na?
From natrium, its Latin name. Eleven elements take their symbol from Latin, German or Greek rather than English — sodium from natrium, potassium from kalium, iron from ferrum, lead from plumbum, gold from aurum, silver from argentum, tin from stannum, mercury from hydrargyrum, copper from cuprum, antimony from stibium and tungsten from the German wolfram.
Which element symbols are hardest to remember?
The eleven that do not match their English names, almost universally. Most people can reconstruct carbon as C or calcium as Ca from first principles, but nothing about the word lead suggests Pb. Those eleven account for a large share of wrong answers, which is why this quiz can be narrowed to just them.
What is the atomic number?
The number of protons in the nucleus, which is what makes an element that element rather than another. Because it is a count it cannot skip, so the table runs contiguously from hydrogen at 1 to oganesson at 118 with no gaps — an element with 43 protons had to exist even before anyone had one.
Why are there no gaps in the periodic table?
Because the atomic number is a proton count, so every whole number between 1 and 118 must correspond to something. Mendeleev exploited exactly this, leaving holes in his table and predicting the properties of what would fill them — and he was proved right when gallium, scandium and germanium were found.
How many elements are there?
One hundred and eighteen have been named and confirmed, up to oganesson. Everything beyond uranium at 92 is synthetic, made in accelerators rather than found, and the heaviest exist for fractions of a second — element 118 has been produced only a handful of times in total.
Why does this quiz use nearby elements as wrong answers?
Because random distractors make questions trivially easy — if the choices are carbon, plutonium, xenon and iron, the answer is usually obvious from context alone. Drawing the wrong answers from within about a dozen atomic numbers forces you to actually know the element rather than eliminate absurdities.
What is the best way to learn the symbols?
The first twenty in order, then the ones you use — the common metals, the halogens, the noble gases — and then the eleven odd ones deliberately as a set. Trying to learn all 118 at once is how most people bounce off, and the back half of the table is rarely needed outside a specific field.
Which elements are named after people?
Several, all in the synthetic range: curium after the Curies, einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, nobelium, lawrencium, rutherfordium, seaborgium, bohrium, meitnerium, roentgenium, copernicium and oganesson. Seaborgium and oganesson were both named while their namesakes were still alive, which was controversial at the time.
Which are named after places?
A great many — americium, californium, berkelium, francium, germanium, polonium, scandium, europium, ruthenium after Russia, hafnium after Copenhagen, lutetium after Paris, nihonium after Japan, moscovium, tennessine and livermorium. Four are named after the single Swedish village of Ytterby: yttrium, ytterbium, terbium and erbium.
Why is aluminium spelled two ways?
Because Humphry Davy changed his mind. He proposed alumium, then aluminum, then aluminium, and different parts of the world settled on different versions. IUPAC uses aluminium, American usage kept aluminum, and both refer to element 13 with symbol Al regardless.
What is the newest element?
The four completing the seventh row — nihonium, moscovium, tennessine and oganesson — were formally named in 2016. Anything heavier would start an eighth row and has not been confirmed, though there is longstanding speculation about an island of stability at higher numbers where isotopes might last much longer.
Does the quiz save my score?
No. Everything runs in your browser, nothing is stored or uploaded, and closing the tab loses the current streak. Questions are generated fresh each time rather than drawn from a fixed list.
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