Later analysis showed that this element was merely vanadium. He named this element vesbium after the volcano. In 1879, Arcangelo Scacchi, an Italian mineralogist, claimed the discovery of a new element in the crusts left over by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius over two centuries earlier. Element 23 was rediscovered in 1831 by the Swedish chemist Nils Gabriel Sefström, who chose the name vanadium for the element, whilst confirming the original discovery of Río to be correct. He later changed the name to erythronium, but when his correct claim for this being a new element was erroneously challenged, he retracted his discovery. Despite Gregor’s priority, titanium stuck as the name of the element, and menachite was forgotten.Įlement 23 was discovered in 1801 by Spanish-Mexican Andrés Manuel de Río, who named it panchromium due to the wide variety of colours its salts exhibited. Five years later, Martin Henrich Klaproth discovered the same element, naming it titanium, and didn’t realise it was identical to Gregor’s element until three years later. The other ‘new’ elements were similarly simply incorrect deductions by Pringle, and were most likely mixtures of elements already in existence.Įnglishman William Gregor discovered titanium in 1789, and gave it the name menachite after the black sand in which he found it.

It’s most likely that gadenium was actually the already discovered scandium, perhaps also contaminated with iron. Unfortunately for Pringle, his determination of the atomic weights of these elements was pretty poor, and additionally he’d failed to describe any new elements. In 1886, a Scotsman, Alexander Pringle, claimed to have discovered four new elements, named polymnestum, erebodium, gadenium and hesperisium. Talcinium was another suggested name, which came later in 1828, though this wasn’t a suggestion that was given serious credence. However, the name magnesium persisted, though magnium is still used in some countries. He named it this, rather than magnesium after the oxide from which it had been obtained (magnesia alba), because he didn’t want the name to be confused with that of another element, manganese. Sir Humphrey Davy isolated magnesium in 1808, and called it magnium. However, Ramsay wanted the name to be derived from Greek, like the other noble gases he had discovered, so he made the slight modification to the element’s current name, neon. He discovered neon in 1898, and decided to use as the element’s name the suggestion of his 13 year old son, ‘novum’. Neon was discovered by the Scottish scientist Sir William Ramsay, who also discovered all of the other elements in group 18 of the periodic table (bar the recently discovered element 118). This eventually became the element’s current name, fluorine. He proposed the name of fluor or phtore for this element, but left the choice to the English chemist Sir Humphrey Davy, with whom he had corresponded on the subject. Though chemists didn’t isolate fluorine until 1886, in 1816 André-Marie Ampère proposed that hydrofluoric acid, like hydrochloric acid, was a binary compound consisting of hydrogen and another element. Other chemists weren’t enamoured with this name, however, and it eventually became nitrogen. Davy proposed the name of boracium for the element, which was eventually modified to boron.Īntoine Lavoisier discovered element 7 in 1776, and later proposed the name azote. However, it wasn’t until 1949 that IUPAC ruled the element should be exclusively called beryllium.īoron was isolated at the same time by the French chemists Louis-Joseph Gay-Lussac and Louis-Jacques Thénard, as well as the English chemist Sir Humphrey Davy, in 1808. When the first samples of the element were later isolated in 1828, the acceptance of the name beryllium, suggested by another chemist, Martin Henrich Klaproth, became more widespread. He named this element glucine, with the symbol Gl, but as this name was very similar to that of the amino acid glycine it was criticised. The French chemist, Louis Nicolas Vauquelin, examined both emerald and beryl and correctly reported that they contained a new element in 1798. It’s well worth checking out for a lot more detail on the history of some of the names featured here, as well as that of many more.

The research for this post was primarily done using “The Lost Elements: The Periodic Table’s Shadow Side”, which details the history of erroneous element discoveries and naming controversies. This table takes a look at some of the different names that have been suggested or used in the past for various elements below, we examine their origins, and the reasons for their rejection. However, they’re all names that have been suggested but rejected for elements in years gone by. Extremium, catium, cyclonium and pandemonium: elements that you won’t find in the periodic table in classrooms and laboratories.

Fminer randomly named element