The American researchers initially wanted to list Element 105 as Hahnium after German scientist Otto Hahn, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1944 for his discovery of nuclear fission.

However, after much talk, Iupac in 1994 decided to call element 108 Hahnium, after Nobel-prize winning chemist Otto Hahn. Hahnium had in fact been the American suggestion for element 105 (now known as ...