Why does the chemical symbol for gold not match its element name?

Answer 1

It does, if you speak Latin. Au is short for aurum, the Latin word for gold. Other cases where this is true: * Silver: Ag, from Latin argentum * Tin: Sn, from Latin stannum * Iron: Fe, from Latin ferrum * Lead: Pb, from Latin plumbum * Antimony: Sb, from Latin stibnum * Sodium: Na, from Latin natrium * Potassium: K, from Latin kalium (Some of those may be back-formations from the names of compounds, since the elements themselves weren't known in uncombined form while Latin was still a living language.) The only case where the symbol doesn't match (at least approximately) the name that does not come from Latin is tungsten: W, ultimately from wolframite, a tungsten ore (in some languages, the name for the metal is "wolfram" instead of tungsten).