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Element by Symbol Lookup

Enter a chemical symbol or element name to look it up.

How it is calculated

This is a table lookup, not a calculation, and the table holds all 118 elements. In the symbol-to-name direction your text is normalised to a capital first letter and lower-case rest, so fe, FE and Fe all match iron. In the name-to-symbol direction the name is compared without regard to case, and the English name is always accepted, including the spellings Aluminum, Sulphur and Cesium. It also accepts the element name in the language of the page you are on. The result shows name, symbol and atomic number Z, the number of protons in the nucleus, and repeats your query with the direction used. Anything that is not an element symbol or name gives no result.

Worked example

Query Fe with the symbol-to-name direction. The tool matches the symbol in its table, where Fe is stored with atomic number 26, and prints Iron (Fe, Z=26). The separate number field shows 26, and the echo line reads Query "Fe", symbol → name. Typing fe in lower case gives the same answer. Switching to name-to-symbol and typing iron gives the same entry back.

Try this example →

Common mistakes

  • Leaving the direction on symbol-to-name while typing a name. Typing "Gold" in that mode finds nothing; "Au" is what that direction expects, and the other way round.
  • Typing a Latin or old name such as Natrium or Ferrum. Only the modern English name, or the page-language name, is matched.
  • Typing a formula instead of one symbol. CO is read as the single symbol Co, so the answer is cobalt, not carbon monoxide; carbon alone is C.
  • Writing a two-letter symbol with the wrong letters. Sodium is Na and potassium is K, because those symbols come from Latin names, so So and Po do not mean them: So gives no result and Po is polonium.

About this calculator

Every entry on the periodic table has a one- or two-letter symbol (like Fe for iron or Na for sodium, both derived from Latin names) alongside its full element name and atomic number Z — the count of protons in the nucleus, which is what actually defines the element and fixes its position in the table.

Looking up an element by symbol, or the reverse — finding the symbol and atomic number for a name — is one of the most routine reference tasks in chemistry, used constantly by students working through equations and lab reports, and by lab technicians reading reagent labels or safety data sheets where only the symbol is given. This tool takes either a chemical symbol or an element name and returns the matching element with its atomic number, for all 118 elements.

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Comments (1)

  • Editorial team

    The symbol direction is most useful for the elements whose symbols come from Latin names and do not look like the English word: Fe for iron, Pb for lead, Au for gold, Ag for silver, Sn for tin, K for potassium, Na for sodium and Hg for mercury. All of those are in the table, in either direction. Which elements did you search for that were not found?

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