In the early stage of foreign element words entering the Chinese system, the translator of Huaxue Jianyuan has established the translation principle of element names. It mainly uses monosyllable and phonetic Chinese characters. It determines 48 transliteration elements either by referring to the transliteration of element names in Jinshi Shibie or by self-formulation. 47 out of 48 characters are ligatures, 21 of which are newly-formed, and 26 are borrowed from unfamiliar inherent Chinese characters. It presents the characteristics of high proportion of new characters, strong systematicness and applicability. There are 48 transliterated element names with recorded characters used by translators, 34 of which are still in use today. The transliteration principles established by translators and the selection or creation methods of transliterated element name characters have a great influence on the subsequent element name characters.

During the late Qing Dynasty, the translator of Jinshi Shibie transliterates names with foreign elements into multisyllabic Chinese words. Through this investigation, I found that the translator’s choice of Chinese characters to be used in the transliteration element was mainly based on Xiaoyun of Guangyun. The characters selected with the principles include those easy to write, easy to distinguish, commonly used, and used for systemization. The main reason for different usage of Chinese characters in element transliteration name was mainly the switch of homophones or variant characters.