Topic summary
Trivial names

Extracted from the Wikipedia article Trivial name.
Trivial names often arise in the common language; they may come from historical usages in, for example, alchemy. Many trivial names pre-date the institution of formal naming conventions. Names can be based on a property of the chemical, including appearance (color, taste or smell), consistency, and crystal structure; a place where it was found or where the discoverer comes from; the name of a scientist; a mythological figure; an astronomical body; the shape of the molecule; and even fictional figures. All elements that have been isolated have trivial names.