Why was element 101 named mendelevium?

Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

Element 101, mendelevium, was named in honor of the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev.1

Mendeleev is recognized as the founder of the periodic law for his development of the periodic table. By arranging elements according to their properties, he successfully identified patterns and predicted the existence and characteristics of then-unknown elements. This foundational contribution to chemistry serves as the reason for naming the synthetic element after him.231