# Why is the specific notation used for term symbols useful?

This has bugged me for a long time.

Term symbols describe electronic states of atoms which have well-defined total electronic angular momentum $J$ as well as total spin and orbital angular momenta $S$ and $L$; this is often a good description. My question is specifically about the presentation of this information, which is typically (i.e. always) in the format $${}^{2S+1}L_J,$$ where $2S+1$ is the spin multiplicity and the quantum number $L$ is substituted for the corresponding spectroscopic-notational letter, from the sequence S, P, D, F, G, H, I, ... .

Overall, my question is: what's with this notation? It is definitely one of the most perplexing pieces of quantum mechanics in the path of an undergraduate student, and it is seldom justified.

On one side, I understand that parts of it, and particularly the spectroscopic notation, has deep historic roots which it's not really advantageous to ignore - $P$ states are $P$ states and using other names for them would just be confusing. However, I'm not sure how, if at all, the other two numbers show up directly in spectroscopy.

This brings me to the other side: the term symbol is informationally equivalent to simply stating the triplet $(L,S,J)$. The fact that it's the former that gets used and not the latter seems to say that the former presents the useful information about the state in a cleaner and more immediate way. If this is the case, what is this information, how is it useful in the 'real world', and how does the term symbol help one get to it quickly? (More to the point, why is $2S+1$ used instead of $S$?)

On the other hand, I'd understand if the origin of this is purely historical. If this is the case (and even if it's not), how did the notation come to be, and why did it make sense at the time?

Edit: note that I am not asking for the origin of the spectroscopical notation (i.e. the specific letters s, p, d, f, g, etc.). I am interested in why the interesting triplet of numbers is $(L,2S+1,J)$, roughly in that order of importance, are chosen and why they are useful, and whether the super- or subscripting carries any information.