Hassium is named after Hesse, a German state, but the element is named not after its German name but instead its Latin one. I'm sure the faculty was suitably impressed with this bit of cleverness but methinks those German chaps could have been a little more innovative. If they'd run out of dead scientists to honor what about a sweetheart or a pastry? Still, doing as they did it at least provided fans of trivia with a great question: name the only elements named after a country, one of its cities and one of its states (germanium, darmstadtium, hassium).

It was back in 1984 that the experiment that gave the element its name took place and gave birth to three baby atoms of Hs; all three of which promptly broke apart in a shower of energy. Et voilà, c'est tout!