Etymology

Y chromosome

Today it means: A mammalian sex chromosome: in the XY sex-determination system, cells of females typically have a pair of X chromosomes, while cells of males typically have an X and a Y. Full definition →

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The story

Named by Nettie Stevens in 1905 using the next letter in sequence following the naming by Hermann Henking in 1890 of the X chromosome. The brief resemblance in the appearance of the X and Y chromosomes to the letters "X" and "Y" respectively during cell division is entirely coincidental.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.