The currently accepted names and symbols of thechemical elements are determined by theInternational Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), usually following recommendations by the recognized discoverers of each element. However, the names of several elements have been the subject of controversies until IUPAC established an official name. In most cases, the controversy was due to a priority dispute as to who first found conclusive evidence for the existence of an element, or as to what evidence was in fact conclusive.

Vanadium (named afterVanadís, another name forFreyja, the Scandinavian goddess of fertility) was originallydiscovered byAndrés Manuel del Río (a Spanish-born Mexican mineralogist) inMexico City in 1801. He discovered the element after being sent a sample of "brown lead" ore (plomo pardo de Zimapán, now namedvanadinite). Through experimentation, he found it to form salts with a wide variety of colors, so he named the elementpanchromium (Greek: all colors). He later renamed this substanceerythronium, since most of the salts turned red when heated. The French chemistHippolyte Victor Collet-Descotils incorrectly declared that del Río's new element was only impurechromium. Del Río thought himself to be mistaken and accepted the statement of the French chemist that was also backed by del Río's friendAlexander von Humboldt.^[1]

In 1831,Sefström of Sweden rediscovered vanadium in a new oxide he found while working with someiron ores. He chose to call the elementvanadin in Swedish (which has becomevanadium in other languages including German and English) after the Old NorseVanadís, another name for the Norse Vanr goddess Freyja, whose facets include connections to beauty and fertility, because of the many beautifully colored chemical compounds it produces. Later that same year,Friedrich Wöhler confirmed del Río's earlier work.^[2] Later,George William Featherstonhaugh, one of the first US geologists, suggested that the element should be named "rionium" after del Río, but this never happened.^[3]

Charles Hatchett named element 41columbium in 1801^[4] (Cb),^[5] but after the publication ofOn the Identity of Columbium and Tantalum byWilliam Hyde Wollaston in 1809, the claims of discovery of Hatchett were mistakenly considered refuted.^[6]In 1846,Heinrich Rose discovered that tantalite contained an element similar to tantalum and named it niobium.^[7][8] In the 1860s, it was found that niobium and columbium are the same element and are distinct from tantalum.^[9]

IUPAC officially adoptedniobium in 1949 after 100 years of controversy.^[10][11][12]

Gadolinite, a mineral (fromYtterby, a village in Sweden), consists of several compounds (oxides or earths):yttria,erbia (sub-component asytterbia) andterbia.

In 1878,Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac assumed thatytterbia consisted of a new element he calledytterbium (but actually, there were two new elements).In 1907,Georges Urbain isolated oxides of element 70 and element 71 fromytterbia. He called element 70neoytterbium ("new ytterbium") and called element 71lutecium. At about the same time,Carl Auer von Welsbach also independently isolated these and proposed the namesaldebaranium (Ad), after the starAldebaran (in the constellation ofTaurus), for element 70 (ytterbium), andcassiopeium (Cp), after theconstellation Cassiopeia, for element 71 (lutetium), but both proposals were rejected.

Neoytterbium (element 70) was eventually reverted toytterbium (following Marignac), and in 1949, the spelling oflutecium (element 71) was changed tolutetium.^[10]

In 1911,Georges Urbain announced discovery of a rare earth element following lutetium by atomic weight, which he calledceltium. With discovery ofMoseley's law, "celtium" came to be identified as element 72. However,Henry Moseley showed that Urbain's samples of "celtium" did not contain element 72, which therefore remained to be undiscovered, but in 1922,Alexandre Dauvillier noted faint X-ray spectral lines of element 72 in Urbain's samples. In December 1922 or January 1923,Dirk Coster andGeorge de Hevesy discovered element 72 inzircon and showed that it resembles zirconium and differs from the rare earth elements. They considered Dauvillier's result to be dubious and named element 72hafnium. Nevertheless, Urbain continued to consider himself the true discoverer of element 72, so the name "celtium" continued to be used in French chemical literature for hafnium. IUPAC finally confirmed the name "hafnium" in 1949.^[10]

Element 74 has been known since the end of the 18th century under two names,tungsten andwolfram, after two minerals in which it was discovered. In 1949, IUPAC madewolfram the universal name.^[10] However, that decision got a lot of criticism and was given up in 1951, so both names continue to be used depending on the language.^[11][13][12]

At the time of their discovery, there was an element naming controversy as to what (particularly) the elements from 102 to 109 were to be called.^[14][15] At last, a committee of theInternational Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) resolved the dispute and adopted one name for each element. They also adopted a temporarysystematic element name.

IUPAC ratified the namenobelium (No) in honor ofAlfred Nobel.

IUPAC ratified the namelawrencium (Lr) in honor ofErnest Lawrence during a meeting inGeneva; the name was preferred by theAmerican Chemical Society.

TheJoint Institute for Nuclear Research inDubna (thenUSSR, today Russia) named element 104kurchatovium (Ku) in honor ofIgor Kurchatov, father of the Soviet atomic bomb, while theUniversity of California, Berkeley, US, named element 104rutherfordium (Rf) in honor ofErnest Rutherford. In 1997, a committee of IUPAC recommended that element 104 be namedrutherfordium.

TheJoint Institute for Nuclear Research inDubna (a Russian city north of Moscow), proposed naming element 105nielsbohrium (Ns) afterNiels Bohr, while theUniversity of California, Berkeley suggested the namehahnium (Ha) in honor ofOtto Hahn. IUPAC recommended that element 105 be nameddubnium, after Dubna.

The element was discovered almost simultaneously by two laboratories. In June 1974, aSoviet team led byG. N. Flyorov at theJoint Institute for Nuclear Research atDubna reported producing the isotope²⁵⁹106, and in September 1974, an American research team led byAlbert Ghiorso at theLawrence Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley reported creating the isotope²⁶³106. Because their work was independently confirmed first, the Americans suggested the nameseaborgium (Sg) in honor ofGlenn T. Seaborg, an American chemist. 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 adoptedunnilhexium (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.^[16] This ruling was fiercely objected to by theAmerican Chemical Society.

Seaborg and Ghiorso pointed out that precedents had been set in the naming of elements 99 and 100 aseinsteinium (Es) andfermium (Fm) during the lives ofAlbert Einstein andEnrico Fermi, although these names were not publicly announced until after Einstein and Fermi's deaths.^[17] In 1997, as part of a compromise involving elements 104 to 108, the nameseaborgium for element 106 was recognized internationally.

Some suggested the namenielsbohrium (Ns), in honor ofNiels Bohr (this was separate from the proposal of the same name for element 105). IUPAC adoptedunnilseptium (Uns) as a temporary systematic element name. In 1994, a committee of IUPAC recommended that element 107 be namedbohrium (Bh), also in honor of Niels Bohr but using his surname only. 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 withboron, which is calledborium in some languages including Latin. Despite this, the name bohrium for element 107 was recognized internationally in 1997.

IUPAC adoptedunniloctium (Uno) as a temporary systematic element name.In 1997, a committee of IUPAC recommended that element 108 be namedhassium (Hs), in honor of the German state ofHesse (or Hassia in Latin). This state includes the city ofDarmstadt, which is home to theGSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research where several new elements were discovered or confirmed. The element name was accepted internationally.

IUPAC adoptedunnilennium (Une) as a temporary systematic element name. Whilemeitnerium was discussed in the naming controversy, it was the only proposal and thus never disputed. In 1997, a committee of IUPAC adopted the namemeitnerium in honor ofLise Meitner (Mt).

In some countries uninvolved in the dispute, such as Poland, Denmark,^[19] India,^[20] and Indonesia,^[21] bothkurchatovium for element 104 andhahnium for element 105 were used until 1997.

• List of chemical element name etymologies
• Seaborgium § History
• Symbol (chemistry) § Symbols and names not currently used
• IUPAC/IUPAP Joint Working Party (considers claims for discovery and naming of new elements)

• Rayner-Canham, Geoff; Zheng, Zheng (2007). "Naming elements after scientists: an account of a controversy".Foundations of Chemistry.10 (1): 13.doi:10.1007/s10698-007-9042-1.S2CID 96082444.
• Holden, N. E. (12 March 2004)."History of the Origin of the Chemical Elements and Their Discoverers".National Nuclear Data Center.

• Naming of chemical elements
• Discovery and invention controversies
• Lists of controversies
• Naming controversies

• CS1 German-language sources (de)
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata