Wolfram
mid 18th century: from German, assumed to be a miners' term, perhaps from Wolf ‘wolf’ + Middle High German rām ‘soot’, probably originally a pejorative term referring to the ore's inferiority to tin, with which it occurred.
wiktionary
Borrowed from German Wolfram, a German surname derived from the Germanic element "wulf" (meaning "wolf") combined with "hraban" (meaning "raven") and related to the animals that accompanied the Nordic God Odin. The element tungsten's symbol ( W) is from this word.
etymonline
wolfram (n.)
1757, from German Wolfram, wolform "iron tungstate" (1562), of obscure etymology. It looks like "wolf-cream" (from rahm "cream"), but the second element might be Middle High German ram (German Rahm) "dirty mark, soot;" if so, perhaps "so called in sign of contempt because it was regarded of lesser value than tin and caused a considerable loss of tin during the smelting process in the furnace" [Klein]. Or perhaps the word is originally a personal name, "wolf-raven."
