Elementymology & Elements Multidict

memory peg	Very dense, gray metal melting point 3410 °C; 6170 °F boiling point 5660 °C; 10220 °F density 19.3 g/cc; 1204.9 pounds/cubic foot
1783 Juan José and Fausto de Elhuyar y de Zubice
Wolfram: mineral wolframite (Fe,Mn)WO4), from "Wolf Rahm" (German for wolf's foam), because it "eats" tin as a wolf eats sheep; Tungsten: mineral tungsten (CaWO4), meaning heavy stone (Swedish)

In 1556, Georgius Agricola (1494-1555) referred to the existence of a mineral lupi spuma (= wolf's foam; in German wolf rahm), today known as wolframite. It was so called due to the apparent tin "eating" during the extraction, like the wolf eats the sheep. In 1761 Johann Gottlieb Lehmann (1719-1767) fused the mineral wolframite [(Fe,Mn)WO₄] with sodium nitrate and found the melt to dissolve in water forming a green solution which turned red (due to manganate and permanganate). Adding mineral acid (H₂SO₄) precipitated a white spongy earth which turned yellow after long standing. In 1779 Peter Woulfe (1727-1803/5) cooked wolframite in the acid of salt (HCl) and upon finding a rich yellow color suggested it might contained something new.

In 1781 Carl Wilhelm Scheele (1742-1786) analyzed a white mineral, named tungsten (later named scheelite, CaWO₄), and showed that it was a salt of calcium from a new acid, tungstic acid. Torbern Bergman (1735-1784), believing scheelite's high density suggested it contained the heavy earth baryta, was frustrated when he too found it contained the acidic material rather than the alkaline expected for baryta. Later he recognized that tungstenic acid was an oxide of a new element, which was called Lapis ponderosus ("heavy stone"), or in the Swedish translation Tungsten. Somewhat later, Martin Heinrich Klaproth, proposed to call the newly open metal Scheelium in Scheele's honour, but Jöns Jakob Berzelius, who at first supported this name, soon preferred Tungsten.

Two years later, in 1783, two Spanish chemists, Juan José de Elhuyar y de Zubice, a student of Bergman, and his younger brother Fausto de Elhuyar y de Zubice (also Suvisa) (1755-1833) analyzed wolframite and found it contained the same new oxide as tungsten. They then produced the new metal by reducing the acid by strongly heating with powdered charcoal. They named the new metal Wolfram, after the mineral. The notice of their discovery was received at the Academy of Sciences of Toulouse, on 4 March 1784. They claim the name volfram as follows: "We will call this new metal volfram, taking the name from the matter of which it has been extracted…. This name is more suitable than tungust or tungsten which could be used as a tribute to tungstene or heavy stone from which its lime was extracted, because volfram is a mineral which was known long before the heavy stone, at least among the mineralogists, and also because the name volfram is accepted in almost all European languages, including Swedish."

The name Wolfram was originally recommended by IUPAC, but the alternative Tungsten — after the Swedish origin — is used mainly in the English speaking world (in present day Swedish the element is normally named "volfram"!).
But in 2005 IUPAC on behalf of most Spanish chemists, IUPAC members Pilar Goya and Pascual Román brought this issue up for discussion and request the name wolfram be maintained based on the following reasons:

• the true discoverers were the Delhuyar brothers and they named the element volfram (Note that at that time, the letter "w" did not exist in the Spanish alphabet, but appeared for the first time in 1914 and is now included).
• Scheele and Bergman were the first to obtain the trioxide from scheelite two years before, but they did not isolate the pure element.
• The word wolfram, deriving from the German wolf’s rahm, is how wolframite was traditionally known by the saxon miners. The pure element was isolated from wolframite.
• Since the symbol of the element is W it is logical and self-explanatory that it derives from wolfram and not from tungsten. It usually has been acceptable to use the name proposed by those who isolated the element itself and not compounds containing the element in their formula, as is the case of the trioxide.

In the 19th century a native Czech name was proposed: Tezík, which could be derived from "tezký" = heavy.

• Mary Elvira Weeks, Discovery of the Elements, comp. rev. by Henry M. Leicester (Easton, Pa.: Journal of Chemical Education, 1968), pp. 241-260.
• Pilar Goya and Pascual Román, "Wolfram vs. Tungsten". Chemistry International 27, 4 (July-August 2005) (on-line)