Why "J" Is Missing From the Periodic Table

Go ahead and scan through all 118 elements on the Periodic Table. You'll find Xenon, Yttrium, Zinc, and even the tongue-twisting Oganesson. But no matter how carefully you look, you won't find a single J anywhere—not in an element's name, not in its one or two-letter symbol.

It's the alphabet's loneliest letter, at least when it comes to chemistry.

The Latin Connection

The explanation traces back to the origins of scientific naming conventions. When chemists began systematically naming elements in the 18th and 19th centuries, they drew heavily from Latin and Greek—languages where the letter J essentially didn't exist as a distinct character.

In classical Latin, the sound we associate with J was written as I. The name "Julius," for instance, was spelled "Iulius." The letter J only emerged as a separate character in European languages during the 16th century, well after Latin had established itself as the language of science.

So Close, Yet So Far

A few elements come tantalizingly close to breaking J's losing streak:

• Iodine (I) – In German, it's spelled "Jod," but the international scientific name uses the Latin-derived spelling
• Elements discovered by German scientists – Though German uses J frequently, element names defaulted to Latinized versions

Even relatively recent discoveries haven't changed things. Elements 113 through 118 were named between 2016 and 2019, yet none of the naming committees opted for anything J-related.

The Alphabet Scoreboard

Meanwhile, some letters appear with surprising frequency. Uranium, Sulfur, Nitrogen, Oxygen—vowels dominate. The letter U alone appears in Uranium, Ruthenium, Thulium, Europium, Curium, Neptunium, Plutonium, and several others.

Every other letter of the English alphabet makes at least one appearance somewhere on the table. Q squeaks in via Quercium... wait, no—actually Q doesn't appear either, right?

Wrong. Look closer: there's no element starting with Q, but the letter appears in the name Livermorium's... actually, no again. Let's set the record straight: Q doesn't appear in any element name either.

Wait—What About Q?

Here's where it gets interesting. If you only count element names (not symbols), both J and Q are absent. But the original claim specifically references the Periodic Table as a whole, which includes the two-letter symbols.

And here's the kicker: while no element symbol contains J, the temporary placeholder name for element 114 before it was officially named Flerovium was Ununquadium—which contains a Q. Similarly, Ununpentium and other placeholder names used the "qu" sound spelled out.

But in the current, official Periodic Table? Both J and Q are missing from element names. However, J remains unique as the only letter absent from both names and symbols, since Q technically appears in no symbols either—making them tied.

The cleanest way to state it: J is the only letter that appears nowhere on the standard Periodic Table—no element names, no symbols, nothing. It's chemistry's forgotten letter.

Will J Ever Get Its Moment?

Future elements could theoretically break the streak. Scientists have proposed names before that contained unusual letters. But with naming conventions still favoring Latin and Greek roots—plus the tradition of honoring scientists, places, and mythological figures—the letter J may be waiting a very long time for its periodic debut.

For now, it remains the alphabet's odd one out: 26 letters, 118 elements, and J didn't make the cut.