1 November 2009
Rhenium, element 75, is named for the Rhineland region of Germany. Rhenus is the Latin name for the river Rhine. The element was discovered in 1925 by German chemists Walter Noddack, Ida Tacke, and Otto Berg. From the Glasgow Herald of 16 June 1925:
These new elements have been named by their discoverers “Masurium,” after the Masurian Lake region, and “Rhenium,” after the Rhineland.1
(Masurium is an early name for the element now known as technetium.)
The chemical symbol for rhenium is Re.
Sources:
Oxford English Dictionary, rhenium, 2nd Edition, 1989.