I mustn’t have seen an updated periodic table for a while because I was surprised and a bit pleased to see that, on my boy’s new table, all elements have permanent names.
In 2016, 117 and 118 were given the names tennessine (Ts) and oganesson (Og).
Tennessine was named after Tennessee, as much of the relevant synthesis work was done in Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. First description dates from 2009, so tennessine is the last discovered element. The -ine ending reflects the fact that it is a halogen (like chlorine, fluorine etc).
Oganesson was named after Yuri Oganessian, who played a role in its discovery. He’s still with us, and having an element named after you while you’re still alive is a rare honour indeed. Probably first synthesised in 2002. The -on ending signifies its membership of the nobel gases group (like neon, argon etc), though note that it would probably be a solid at room temperature, if you could somehow get enough of it together.
This makes for a nice neat periodic table, all 7 periods filled with known and named elements and it won’t be messed up until someone synthesises something from period 8. There’s been a spell of 13 years now with no new elements so perhaps that’s not so easy.
Both of these are quite short lived, but neither is as shortlived as might be predicted were it not for a phenomenon called closed nuclear shells. This fact has lent greater weight to the hypothesis that there exists an island of stability with around 184 neutrons.
