Russian Corps
Boisbaudran named his element "samaria" after the mineral samarskite, which in turn honored Vassili Samarsky-Bykhovets (1803–1870). Samarsky-Bykhovets, as the Chief of Staff of the Russian Corps of Mining Engineers, had granted access for two German mineralogists, the brothers Gustav Rose and Heinrich Rose, to study the mineral samples from the Urals. In this sense samarium was the first chemical element to be named after a person. Later the name "samaria" used by Boisbaudran was transformed into "samarium", to conform with other element names, and samaria nowadays is sometimes used to refer to samarium oxide, by analogy with yttria, zirconia, alumina, ceria, holmia, etc. The symbol "Sm" was suggested for samarium; however an alternative "Sa" was frequently used instead until the 1920s.