yttrium
Yttrium is a chemical element with atomic number 39 and the symbol Y. It is a silvery transition metal. It is used in the production of numerous electronic devices, notably in the phosphors in LED lights and formerly in cathode-ray tubes. Yttrium is toxic, and exposure to airborne yttrium dust can cause lung disease in humans.
Yttrium was the first of several elements discovered at and named for the quarry at Ytterby, Sweden. The others being ytterbium, erbium, and terbium. It was first identified by chemist Johan Gadolin in 1794, but he did not propose a name for the element. Three years later, Anders Gustav Ekeberg confirmed the discovery and proposed the Swedish name Ytterjord and the Latin name Yttria:
Den bör då namngifvas, och dårvid tyckes vara vigaft at hafva affeende på defs första upfinningsort, emedan hvarken af upfinnarens namn, ej heller af någon jordens egenskap kan formeras en nog kort och för flere språk passande benåmning. Den kan då heta Ytterjord, på latin Yttria, hvarigenom den både i ljud och bokståfver år fri från tvetydighet och förblandning.
(It should then be named, and in that case it seems to be appropriate to refer to its first place of discovery, because neither the name of the discoverer, nor any property of the earth can be formed into a name that is sufficiently short and suitable for several languages. It can then be called Ytterjord, in Latin Yttria, whereby both in sound and letters it is free from ambiguity and confusion.)
The -ium ending was subsequently added to conform to the standard practice of naming metals.
Sources:
Ekeberg, A. G. “Ytterligare undersökningar av den svarta stenarten frail Ytterby och den dari fundna egna jord.” Kungliga Svenska Vetenskapsakademiens Handlingar 18.2, April–June 1797, 156–164 at 163. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Gadolin, Johan. “Undersökning af en svart tung Stenart ifrån Ytterby Stenbrott I Roslagen.” Kongliga Vetenskapsakademiens Nya Handlingar, 15.2, April–June 1794, 137–55. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Miśkowiec, Pawel. “Name Game: The Naming History of the Chemical Elements—Part 1—From Antiquity till the End of 18th Century.” Foundations of Chemistry. 1 November 2022. DOI: 10.1007/s10698-022-09448-5.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. yttrium, n.