Respectively, those symbols — all of them temporary placeholders — stand for ununtrium, ununpentium, ununseptium, and ununoctium.

But the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) has just decided on some new and permanent names: nihonium, moscovium, tennessine, and oganesson.

They aren't substances you'd recognize. In fact, you'll probably never, ever see the newly named elements in real life. They were created in high-tech labs by scientists hurling smaller atoms at each other until they made something larger. (The scientific equivalent of throwing spaghetti at a wall and hoping it sticks.)

Each name was proposed by the research team that created the element, and the names show that personal connection. Number 113, nihonium, named for Japan (called Nihon in Japanese), is the first element to be discovered in Asia. Similarly, moscovium (115) and tennessine (117) were discovered by a team of scientists collaborating from Russia and Tennessee.