There is an interesting story behind the naming of the element now known as lutetium. Lutetium was discovered in 1907 independently by three scientists. They were Charles James, an American scientist, Georges Urbain, a French chemist, and Carl Auer von Welsbach, an Austrian mineralogist. When it came to naming the element, there was a dispute among them. Urbain, French by birth, proposed two names, one of which was ‘lutecium’, conceived from Lutetia, the Roman name for Paris. Welsbach had some other ideas. Both of them accused each other of using each other’s research details as well. Anyhow, Urbain’s name was accepted, and it gained popularity with a small change in spelling —from lutecium to lutetium.
The element has not been isolated until recent years, and it is one of the most difficult ones to prepare. There are very few commercial uses for lutetium because it is too expensive, and too difficult to extract.
The atomic number of lutetium is 71, and its symbol is Lu.