If you’ve ever looked at the name Alumnium and wondered if you were looking at a typo for the metal, you aren’t entirely wrong. It is a linguistic puzzle, a chemistry joke, and a tribute to the “Periodic Table” of open-source testing history.
The story starts with a long-standing tradition in the QA world. Most of us know that the ecosystem is built on chemical elements and substances. It began with Mercury Interactive, which eventually led to the birth of Selenium, named specifically because selenium is a known chemical antidote to mercury poisoning. This theme has flourished over the years with projects like Watir (which actually predates Selenium and is read as “water”) and Selenide, a literal compound of selenium.
When I began building an AI-driven wrapper for Selenium, I wanted to respect that heritage. I didn’t want to position the tool as a competitor. On the contrary, I wanted something that felt like a natural evolution within that same chemical ecosystem.
The Search for an Element
Section titled “The Search for an Element”I spent some time scanning the periodic table for something that clicked and eventually landed on the metal that is famously at the center of a linguistic divide: Aluminium. Being based in California, I definitely considered using the American spelling, Aluminum, but a quick check revealed that the name was already taken on PyPI and NPM.
However, the spelling conflict itself felt like a perfect fit. Both aluminum and aluminium were coined around the same time and spent years competing for dominance in the world of chemistry. Even today, the world speaks both versions interchangeably. If you’re curious about the deep dive into that history, the spelling history of the element is a rabbit hole of its own.
This duality is even part of tech culture. Apple is famous for using aluminum in text while its legendary former design chief, Jony Ive, would pronounce it as aluminium in every product video. Since the word has a precedent for being malleable, it became the perfect canvas for a bit of wordplay.
No I in AI
Section titled “No I in AI”The first thing that caught my eye about the name was the chemical symbol: Al. In many fonts, those two letters are indistinguishable from AI, which felt like a perfect visual hack for a tool powered by artificial intelligence.
But I wanted to go a step further. There is a joke in the tech that “there is no ‘I’ (Intelligence) in AI”. I decided to take that literally and physically remove the “i” from the word. By dropping that single letter, the already debated Aluminium became the unique Alumnium. It also made a perfect title for my SeleniumConf talk where I presented the tool.
Further Deconstruction
Section titled “Further Deconstruction”As I looked at this new word, I realized it had a hidden, weird beauty that perfectly matched my own journey. You can deconstruct the name into two distinct, meaningful parts that tell the story of where the project came from.
The first part is Alumni. As one of the technical leaders of the Selenium project, I view Alumnium as a “graduate” of that world. It’s the place where I’m applying everything I’ve learned from years of maintaining core bindings and working on browser automation. In that sense, I am an alumnus of the Selenium project, guided by some of the brightest engineers I’ve ever met, and this tool is the next chapter.
The second part is Um. In many Slavic languages, the word ум means “mind” or “intelligence”. Now it’s a bit of a linguistic twist: I removed the “I” for intelligence from the middle of the word, only to keep it at the end in my native language.
Proving Google Wrong
Section titled “Proving Google Wrong”I know it’s a tricky name. Right now, if you search for the project, Google’s algorithms confidently ask, “Did you mean aluminum?” But I’ve been here before. When I first released Maccy, my macOS clipboard manager, Google spent a long time asking users, “Did you mean Macy’s?” Today, Maccy has been downloaded 1.5M times and translated into 35 languages. It has carved out its own space in the search results and Google knows it very well. I have a hope that, in time, Alumnium will do the same.
The Future of the Name
Section titled “The Future of the Name”The fun part about a name like this is that it’s as flexible as the metal it’s named after. If we ever decide to lean further into the “alumnus” identity, we could simply drop the “um” entirely and call it Alumni, completing the removal of “intelligence” once and for all. Or, if we want to get really academic, we could pivot to Alumen, the truly “i-less” Latin form.
For now, Alumnium stays. It’s a name that bridges the gap between traditional automated testing and its future, as it paves its way for test automation with AI.