Chemical Symbols:

At one time chemists used various symbols, same to shorthand, for the atoms of the variant elements. These symbols were very cumbersome and were exchanged by abbreviations of the names of the parts. Each component has been assigned an exact one or two letter symbol based on the first letter of its chemical name. Because there are several elements along with the same first letter, it is frequently essential to add the second letter to the symbol.  In several cases the symbol comes from an abbreviation for the old latin name of the component.  For instance, Fe stands for iron (ferrum) and Cu for copper (cuprum). A first letter of the chemical symbol is always capitalized.  The second letter is always lowercase if the symbol has two letters.