List of chemical elements naming controversies

Element 23

Vanadium
Vanadium
Vanadium is a chemical element with the symbol V and atomic number 23. It is a hard, silvery gray, ductile and malleable transition metal. The formation of an oxide layer stabilizes the metal against oxidation. The element is found only in chemically combined form in nature...

(named after Vanadis, another name for Freyja, the Scandinavian goddess of fertility) was originally discovered by Andrés Manuel del Río

Andrés Manuel del Río

Andrés Manuel del Río Fernández was a Spanish–Mexican scientist and naturalist who discovered the chemical element vanadium.-Education:...

(a Spanish-born Mexican mineralogist) in Mexico City in 1801. He discovered the element after being sent a sample of "brown lead" ore (now named vanadinite

Vanadinite

Vanadinite is a mineral belonging to the apatite group of phosphates, with the chemical formula Pb53Cl. It is one of the main industrial ores of the metal vanadium and a minor source of lead. A dense, brittle mineral, it is usually found in the form of red hexagonal crystals. It is an uncommon...

). Through experimentation, he found it to form salts with a wide variety of colors, so he named the element panchromium (Greek: all colors). He later renamed this substance erythronium, since most of the salts turned red when heated. The French chemist Hippolyte Victor Collet-Descotils incorrectly declared that del Río's new element was only impure chromium

Chromium

Chromium is a chemical element which has the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in Group 6. It is a steely-gray, lustrous, hard metal that takes a high polish and has a high melting point. It is also odorless, tasteless, and malleable...

. Del Río thought himself to be mistaken and accepted the statement of the French chemist that was also backed by del Río's friend Alexander von Humboldt

Alexander von Humboldt

Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt...

.

In 1831, Sefström

Nils Gabriel Sefström

Nils Gabriel Sefström was a Swedish chemist. Sefström was a student of Berzelius and, when studying the brittleness of steel in 1830, he rediscovered a new chemical element, to which he gave the name vanadium....

of Sweden rediscovered vanadium in a new oxide he found while working with some iron

Iron

Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

ores and named the element accordingly vanadium

Vanadium

Vanadium is a chemical element with the symbol V and atomic number 23. It is a hard, silvery gray, ductile and malleable transition metal. The formation of an oxide layer stabilizes the metal against oxidation. The element is found only in chemically combined form in nature...

; later that same year Friedrich Wöhler

Friedrich Wöhler

Friedrich Wöhler was a German chemist, best known for his synthesis of urea, but also the first to isolate several chemical elements.-Biography:He was born in Eschersheim, which belonged to aau...

confirmed del Río's earlier work. Later,
George William Featherstonhaugh

George William Featherstonhaugh

George William Featherstonhaugh FRS was a British geologist and geographer who initiated the Albany and Schenectady Railroad and was a surveyor of the Louisiana Purchase for the US Government....

, one of the first US geologists, suggested that the element should be named "rionium" after del Río, but this never happened.

Elements 41 & 74

Charles Hatchett

Charles Hatchett FRS was an English chemist who discovered the element niobium.- Biography:Hatchett was born, raised, and lived in London...

named element 41 Columbium (Cb), but after the publication of the identity of columbium with tantalum by William Hyde Wollaston

William Hyde Wollaston

William Hyde Wollaston FRS was an English chemist and physicist who is famous for discovering two chemical elements and for developing a way to process platinum ore.-Biography:...

the claims of discovery of Hattchet were refused.
Heinrich Rose

Heinrich Rose

Heinrich Rose was a German mineralogist and analytical chemist. He was the brother of the mineralogist Gustav Rose and a son of Valentin Rose....

discovered that tantalite contained an element similar to tantalum and named it Niobium.

IUPAC officially adopted Niobium in 1950 after 100 years of controversy.
This was a compromise of sorts, the IUPAC accepted Tungsten instead of Wolfram (in deference to North American usage) and Niobium instead of Columbium (in deference to European usage).

However, while many leading chemical societies and government organizations refer to it by the official IUPAC name, some metallurgists, metal societies, and most leading American commercial producers still refer to the metal by the name Columbium (for Niobium), and by the same token many countries of Europe still refer to the metal by Wolfram (for Tungsten).

Elements 70 & 71

Gadolinite

Gadolinite, sometimes also known as Ytterbite, is a silicate mineral which consists principally of the silicates of cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, yttrium, beryllium, and iron with the formula 2FeBe2Si2O10...

, a mineral (from Ytterby

Ytterby

Ytterby is a village on the Swedish island of Resarö, in Vaxholm Municipality in the Stockholm archipelago.The name of the village means "outer village", implying that its location is its most noteworthy feature....

, a village in Sweden), consists of several compounds (oxides or earths): Yttria, Erbia (sub-component as Ytterbia) and Terbia.

In 1878 Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac

Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac

Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac was a Swiss chemist whose work with atomic weights suggested the possibility of isotopes and the packing fraction of nuclei and whose study of the rare earth elements led to his discovery of ytterbium in 1878 and codiscovery of gadolinium in 1880.- Life and work...

assumed that Ytterbia consisted of a new element he called Ytterbium (but actually there were two new elements).
In 1907 Georges Urbain

Georges Urbain

Georges Urbain - French chemist, professor of Sorbonne. He studied at the elite École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la ville de Paris . He discovered the element Lutetium in 1907.-References:...

isolated element 70 and element 71 from Ytterbia. He called element 70 Neoytterbia ("new Ytterbium") and called element 71 Lutecia.
At about the same time, Carl Auer von Welsbach

Carl Auer von Welsbach

Carl Auer Freiherr von Welsbach was an Austrian scientist and inventor who had a talent for not only discovering advances, but turning them into commercially successful products...

also independently isolated these and proposed the names Aldebaranium, after the star Aldebaran

Aldebaran

Aldebaran is a red giant star located about 65 light years away in the zodiac constellation of Taurus. With an average apparent magnitude of 0.87 it is the brightest star in the constellation and is one of the brightest stars in the nighttime sky...

(in the constellation of Taurus

Taurus (constellation)

Taurus is one of the constellations of the zodiac. Its name is a Latin word meaning 'bull', and its astrological symbol is a stylized bull's head:...

), for the element 70 (Ytterbium), and Cassiopium, after the constellation Cassiopeia

Cassiopeia (constellation)

Cassiopeia is a constellation in the northern sky, named after the vain queen Cassiopeia in Greek mythology, who boasted about her unrivalled beauty. Cassiopea was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century Greek astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations today...

, for element 71 (Lutetium), but both proposals were rejected.

Neoytterbia (element 70) was eventually reverted back to Ytterbium (following Marignac) and in 1949 the spelling of Lutecia (element 71) was changed to Lutetium; although some German chemists still use Cassiopium instead of Lutetium.

(Other elements, Yttrium (element 39) and Gadolinium (element 64), were also discovered in Gadolinite

Gadolinite

and its components, but there was no controversy about their names.)

Elements 103-109

At the time of their discovery, there was an element naming controversy

Element naming controversy

The names for the chemical elements 104 to 106 were the subject of a major controversy starting in the 1960s, described by some nuclear chemists as the Transfermium Wars because it concerned the elements following fermium on the periodic table....

as to what (particularly) the elements from 103 to 109 were to be called.
At last, a committee of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry

International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry is an international federation of National Adhering Organizations that represents chemists in individual countries. It is a member of the International Council for Science . The international headquarters of IUPAC is located in Zürich,...

(IUPAC) resolved the dispute and adopted one name. They also adopted a temporary systematic element name

Systematic element name

A systematic element name is the temporary name and symbol assigned to newly synthesized and not yet synthesized chemical elements. In chemistry, a transuranic element receives a permanent name and symbol only after its synthesis has been confirmed. In some cases, this has been a protracted and...

About element 103

IUPAC ratified the name Lawrencium (Lr) during a meeting in Geneva

Geneva

Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

; the name was preferred by the American Chemical Society

American Chemical Society

The American Chemical Society is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 161,000 members at all degree-levels and in all fields of chemistry, chemical...

About element 104

The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research

Joint Institute for Nuclear Research

The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, JINR , in Dubna, Moscow Oblast , Russia, is an international research centre for nuclear sciences, with 5500 staff members, 1200 researchers including 1000 Ph.D.s from eighteen member states The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, JINR , in Dubna, Moscow...

in Dubna

Dubna

Dubna is a town in Moscow Oblast, Russia. It has a status of naukograd , being home to the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, an international nuclear physics research centre and one of the largest scientific foundations in the country. It is also home to MKB Raduga, a defence aerospace company...

(then U.S.S.R., today Russia) named element 104 Kurchatovium (Ku).
But the University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

, U.S.A. named element 104 Rutherfordium (Rf) in honor of Ernest Rutherford.
In 1994 a committee of IUPAC recommended that element 104 be named Rutherfordium.

About element 105

The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research

Joint Institute for Nuclear Research

in Dubna

Dubna

named element 105 Dubnium (Db) after Dubna

Dubna

.
But the University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

named element 105 Hahnium (Ha) in honor of Otto Hahn

Otto Hahn

Otto Hahn FRS was a German chemist and Nobel laureate, a pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry. He is regarded as "the father of nuclear chemistry". Hahn was a courageous opposer of Jewish persecution by the Nazis and after World War II he became a passionate campaigner...

.
IUPAC recommended that element 105 be named Dubnium.

About elements 105 and 107

Some suggested the name Nielsbohrium (Ns), named in honor of Niels Bohr

Niels Bohr

Niels Henrik David Bohr was a Danish physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr mentored and collaborated with many of the top physicists of the century at his institute in...

), others believed this name should be given to element 105 (Dubnium), the name being too similar to element 107 (Bohrium, Bh).
IUPAC adopted Unnilseptium (Uns) as a temporary systematic element name.
In 1994 a committee of IUPAC recommended that element 107 be named Bohrium.

While this conforms to the names of other elements honoring individuals where only the surname is taken, it was opposed by many who were concerned that it could be confused with Boron.
Despite this, the name Bohrium for element 107 was recognized internationally in 1997.

About element 106

The element was discovered almost simultaneously by two different laboratories. In June 1974, a Soviet team led by G. N. Flyorov

Georgy Flyorov

Georgy Nikolayevich Flyorov was a prominent Soviet nuclear physicist.-Biography:Flyorov was born in Rostov-on-Don and attended the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute Georgy Nikolayevich Flyorov (March 2, 1913 – November 19, 1990) was a prominent Soviet nuclear physicist.-Biography:Flyorov was born...

at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research

Joint Institute for Nuclear Research

at Dubna

Dubna

reported producing an isotope ²⁵⁹106, and in September 1974, an American research team led by Albert Ghiorso

Albert Ghiorso

Albert Ghiorso was an American nuclear scientist and co-discoverer of a record 12 chemical elements on the periodic table. His research career spanned five decades, from the early 1940s to the late 1990s.-Early life:...

at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

reported creating an isotope ²⁶³106.
Because their work was independently confirmed first, the Americans suggested the name Seaborgium (Sg) in honor of Glenn T. Seaborg

Glenn T. Seaborg

Glenn Theodore Seaborg was an American scientist who won the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "discoveries in the chemistry of the transuranium elements", contributed to the discovery and isolation of ten elements, and developed the actinide concept, which led to the current arrangement of the...

, an American chemist. But this name was extremely controversial because Seaborg was still alive.

An international committee decided in 1992 that the Berkeley and Dubna laboratories should share credit for the discovery.
An element naming controversy erupted and as a result IUPAC adopted Unnilhexium (Unh) as a temporary, systematic element name.

In 1994 a committee of IUPAC adopted a rule that no element can be named after a living person. This ruling was fiercely objected to by the American Chemical Society

American Chemical Society

.

Critics pointed out that a precedent had been set in the naming of Einsteinium
Einsteinium
Einsteinium is a synthetic element with the symbol Es and atomic number 99. It is the seventh transuranic element, and an actinide.Einsteinium was discovered in the debris of the first hydrogen bomb explosion in 1952, and named after Albert Einstein...

(Es), element 99, during Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...

's life. In 1997, as part of a compromise involving elements 104 to 108, the name Seaborgium for element 106 was recognized internationally.

About element 108

IUPAC adopted Unniloctium (Uno) as a temporary, systematic element name.
In 1994 a committee of IUPAC recommended that element 108 be named Hassium (Hs),
and the name was adopted internationally in 1997.

Post-controversial namings

While Meitnerium was discussed in the naming controversy, "Meitnerium" was the only proposal and thus never disputed. Elements 110 (Ds

Darmstadtium

Darmstadtium is a chemical element with the symbol Ds and atomic number 110. It is placed as the heaviest member of group 10, but no known isotope is sufficiently stable to allow chemical experiments to confirm its placing in that group...

, darmstadtium), 111 (Rg

Roentgenium

Roentgenium is a synthetic radioactive chemical element with the symbol Rg and atomic number 111. It is placed as the heaviest member of the group 11 elements, although a sufficiently stable isotope has not yet been produced in a sufficient amount that would confirm this position as a heavier...

, roentgenium) and 112 (Cn, copernicium) were named after the end of the controversy.

About element 109

IUPAC adopted Unnilennium (Une) as a temporary, systematic element name.
In 1997 a committee of IUPAC resolved the dispute and adopted the name Meitnerium (Mt).

Element 23

Elements 41 & 74

Elements 70 & 71

Elements 103-109

Post-controversial namings

See also