There are *stories* behind cadmium’s name – the calamine ore from which it was isolated, and the Greek character Cadmus from which that name arose.  Whereas (I am wildly speculating) copernicium has been named by a bunch of guys voting for a name from a list of scientistic celebrities who already have their name slapped all over moon craters etc.

Perhaps if they’d named it Biebericium or Hundredtwelvium.

Hundredtwelvium would have been better than what they currently use for unnamed elements. Prior to its naming, it was One One Twoium in mangled Greek: Ununbium.

IUPAC are a bunch of pedants that would put out such a periodic table if the name was not fully confirmed.

Copernicium especially – it’s the most clunky 5 syllables imaginable, and would have been much nicer if it just ended in “icum”.

Although, I guess, you can’t do much chemistry with the half dozen or so atoms that have been made, so it’s not yet feasible to come up with names with any real meaning.  But check out the etymologies for Copernicium’s homologues (zinc, cadmium, mercury) to see what we’re missing.

And more importantly, where can we see the new redrawn Periodic Table? Pics or it didn’t happen.