Icelandic name for titanium:
A very difficult name to find, but none of them satisfied me.
The metal has the greatest strenght to weight ratio of ALL metals. How can you express this with one, short adjective. There is no linguistic community in the world's history where people found it necessary to form a special adjective that meant "hard and light" at the same time, something like "lérður (létt + harður). Titanium is the lightest element of the "iron-group of transition metals", scandium included, but scandium is more viewed upon as a rare-earth metal, like Y, La and the lanthanides. The compound léttérni (léttur (light (weight)) + "érni" (i-shift of "járn" ("já" becomes "é"). "léttérni" must be an element lighter than iron. It can belong to the so-called "ferromagnetic triad", composed of "iron", "cobalt" and "nickel".
The name "titanium" was given by Martin Klaproth, in accordance with his views on chemical nomenclature in the counter-flow of the French chemical school, where they tried to name the element by its chemical properties. Since the German researcher himself noted the impossibility of determining the properties of a new element only by its oxide, he chose a name for it from mythology, by analogy with uranium that he had previously discovered. It is, therefore, reasonable to base the Icelandic on the international word.
First, I tried to find a name for the Titans in Icelandic: "forguðaglit" (lustre of pre-gods). I tried out "tímaguðsefni" (time-god-element, named after Kronos, the leader of the Titans, but made a terrible mistake here: Kronos is NOT the god of time, but the one of agriculture and his name goes back to the same indo-european root like the Iclandic "gróður". It is CHronos, which is the Greek god of time. I should have done my homework better. Another possibility is "Forseifingar" (Pre-olympians: for- (pre-) + seifingar (Seifur + "ingur", like "Skarphjaðningar" (family of "Skarphéðinn")). Every word derived from the name "Olympos" in Icelandic can be replaced by constructions with "Seifingar", the adjective "seifskur" or "seifneskur": "Seifingafjall", "seifskir leikar", seifskur kappi (olympian champion). The name for titanium would bewome: Forseifingamálmur, ... too long.
Then I tried some "comparative mythology": What are the equivalents of the Greek Titans in Old Nordic mythology. Some scholars think of the Vanir (Wanes) and the Aesir (Aces) to be the equivalents of the Olympians and the Titans, but most would rather choose the "hrímþursar" (or "jötnar"). I tried "þyrsi" or "þursjárn/ þursérni ("þurs" + "érni" (i-shift of "járn" ("já" becomes "é"), but wasn't satisfied. but than Finally I came across the construction "Ettinstuff", the name for titanium coined by the members of the "Anglish society", who are trying to create an English free of loan-words, the so-calle Anglish. "Ettin" is an old word for "giant" in Old English and a cognate of the Icelandic "jötunn". I decided to go for an i-shift of "jötunn": "ÉTNI". I find this the best option and stand by it. "Étni" sounds like a name for element. It rhymes with "vetni" and sounds like "efni" (stuff, element). It also contains the consonants of "titan" and the characters of the international symbol "Ti". Yes, this is the best choice for "titanium": "étni": "gervilimur úr étni" (titanium prosthesis)