Rare Earth Discovery and Early History

Rare earth elements became known to the world with the discovery of the black mineral ytterbite (also known as gadolinite) by Lieutenant Carl Axel Arrhenius in the year 1787, in a quarry in the village of Ytterby, Sweden. Many of the rare earth are named for the scientists who discovered or elucidated the elemental properties, or for their geographical discovery, or for Latin or Greek references, or for mythical references:

	Symbol	Name	Etymology	Selected Usages
57	La	Lanthanum	from the Greek "lanthanon," meaning I am hidden.
58	Ce	Cerium	for the Roman deity of fertility Ceres.
59	Pr	Praseodymium	from the Greek "praso," meaning leek-green, and "didymos," meaning twin.
60	Nd	Neodymium	from the Greek "neo," meaning new-one, and "didymos," meaning twin.	Neodymium magnets
61	Pm	Promethium	for the Titan Prometheus, who brought fire to mortals.
62	Sm	Samarium	for Vasili Samarsky-Bykhovets, who discovered the rare earth ore samarskite.
63	Eu	Europium	for the continent of Europe.
64	Gd	Gadolinium	for Johan Gadolin (1760-1852), to honor his investigation of rare earths.
65	Tb	Terbium	for the village of Ytterby, Sweden, where the first rare earth ore was discovered.
66	Dy	Dysprosium	from the Greek "dysprositos," meaning hard to get.
67	Ho	Holmium	for Stockholm (in Latin, "Holmia"), native city of one of its discoverers.
68	Er	Erbium	for the village of Ytterby, Sweden.
69	Tm	Thulium	for the mythological land of Thule.
70	Yb	Ytterbium	for the village of Ytterby, Sweden.
71	Lu	Lutetium	for Lutetia, the city which later became Paris.

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