Gray-white metal m.p. 1474 ºC; 2685 ºF b.p. 2695 ºC; 4883 ºF density 8.795 g/cc (25 ºC); 549.054 pound/cubic foot (77 ºF)	memory peg
	1878 Jacques-Louis Soret, France
	Holmia = Stockholm (Latin) Named by Per Theodor Cleve, 1879

The story of discovery and naming of the rare earth element Holmium began with Carl Gustav Mosander splitting old yttria into three new elements, yttria proper, erbia, and terbia (cf. Yttrium). In 1860 the Swedish chemist Nils Johan Berlin (1812-1891) denied the existence of Mosander’s erbia, and gave this name to his terbia.

In 1878, Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac, professor of Chemistry at the University of Geneva, separated Berlin's erbia into two new earths, erbia and ytterbia (note). Marignac's erbia was the following year split by Cleve into erbia proper and two new elements, which he named Thulium and Holmium (note). (it seemed that Delafontaine's Philippium, found in 1878 in samarskite, was identical with Holmium).

Gadolinite, with Berlin’s erbia, was also spectroscopically examined by Jacques-Louis Soret in 1878. He wrote that Marignac and Delafontaine have found three earths in gadolinite, yttria, erbia, and terbia, the latter being contested, and that it seemed that there was also a fourth earth present, which was still unnamed. Soret indicated the new metal provisionally with terre X (note). In 1880 he accepted Cleve’s name holmia (note).

Holmia was split in 1886 by Lecoq de Boisbaudran into a true holmia and a new oxide dysprosia (note).

After Holmia, the Latin name of Stockholm, capital of Sweden, since it the region of Stockholm minerals with yttria are found. The holm part of the name Stockholm means "island": The town is built on several islands. The origin of the stock part is uncertain, probably it is derived from stäke, a small sound.

According to other sources it is named after the chemist O. Holmberg. This is erroneous: Holmberg was in 1911 the first who succeeded to prepare pure Holmium.

John and Gordon Marks suggested in 1994 the name Newtonium (Nw), after Sir Isaac Newton, just as Einsteinium is named after Albert Einstein. The Marks brothers found the old names ugly and confusing. They offered alternative names that are equivalent contemporary (at the time and place of discovery) metaphors, both more euphonious and more memorable (note).

See also: Chronological list of discovery of the rare earths, their names in different languages etc. on the Yttrium page

Further reading:

• Mary Elvira Weeks, Discovery of the Elements, comp. rev. by Heny M. Leicester (Easton, Pa.: Journal of Chemical Education, 1968), pp. 667-699.
• Seltene Erden. Gmelins Handbuch der anorganische Chemie, 8. Aufl.; System-Nummer 39 (1938).