List of chemical elements named after people

These 19 elements are connected to the names of people. Seaborg and Oganessian were the only living persons honored by having elements named after them; Oganessian is the only one still alive. Names were proposed to honor Einstein and Fermi while they were still alive, but they had both died by the time those names became official. The four elements associated with non-scientists were not named in their honor but named for something else bearing their name: samarium for the mineral samarskite from which it was isolated; and americium, berkelium and livermorium after places named for them. The cities of Berkeley, California and Livermore, California are the locations of the University of California Radiation Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, respectively. Six elements have only an indirect namesake: samarium, gadolinium, americium, berkelium, flerovium, and livermorium were each named for a mineral or place that were themselves named for people. ==Other connections==

Other element names connected with people (real or mythological) have been proposed but failed to gain official international recognition. The following such names received past significant use among scientists: • cassiopeium after the constellation Cassiopeia, hence indirectly connected to the mythological Cassiopeia (now lutetium); • columbium after Christopher Columbus (now niobium); • hahnium after Otto Hahn (now dubnium, also later proposed for what is now hassium); • joliotium after Irène Joliot-Curie (now nobelium, also later proposed for what is now dubnium); • kurchatovium after Igor Kurchatov (now rutherfordium); Names had also been suggested (but not used) to honour Henri Becquerel (becquerelium) and Paul Langevin (langevinium). George Gamow, Lev Landau, and (who was alive at the time) were suggested for consideration for honoring with elements during the Transfermium Wars, but were not actually proposed. Its discoverer William Ramsay intended this name to be an indication of the qualities of this element in analogy to the generic group of people. Gallium was discovered by French scientist Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran, who named it in honor of France ("Gallia" in Latin); allegations were later made that he had also named it for himself, as "gallus" is Latin for "le coq", but he denied that this had been his intention. ==See also==