I have lived in a couple of places which had a town called Lithia or Lithia Springs nearby. Every time I would see it I would jokingly think what a well-adjusted place it must be. 
In most of the geographic places the name comes from the mineral/element being nearby. Or, in cases like Ytterby, the elements (four of them, in that case) are named after the town.
But in neither of these cases are my OP crirteria met. If the town is named “sulphur Springs”, then clearly it was the presence of sulphur, not the sound of the name or its scientific cachet that is responsible for the naming. And if the town gave its name to the element, the name clearly wasn’t taken because it sounded “scientific”. The naming is wholly unrelated not only to the eventual element, but to any trace of being influenced by the association with scientific stuff.
No love for DC’s Max Mercury? 
Aaron Williams used the same names for his Superman-equivalent in PS238.
I just necromanced that thread with a link to an article from Word Ways magazine I wrote years ago.
As far as Gelett Burgess, he “coined” bromide with the meaning of someone who often utters trite, hackneyed phrases. The hackneyed phrases themselves, he called bromidioms. So his coinage there did not quite stick the way he intended.
He did coin a word goop, but with a totally different meaning from what we use today. I can’t remember exactly what his definition was, though.
However, blurb is definitely his. It has a relationship to bromide, as described here
The OED2 defines it as “a stupid or fatuous person”. Its etymology is given as “arbitrary formation”; Burgess isn’t specifically named as the coiner, but the first quotation listed (from 1900) is from him: “Goops, and how to be them. Manual of manners for polite infants, inculcating many juvenile virtues, both by precept and example.”
Is his name pronounced “kwark”, or “Kwork”? I’ve always thought the sub-atomic particle was pronounced kwark, but I see that the originator hoped for kwork.
The sub-atomic particle is, of course, an inversion of the OP, since the sub-atomic particle was named for the sound of an unrelated word.
His “goops” were oddly-shaped people who didn’t behave correctly. Hence the title of his book containing them, Goops and How to Be Them: A Manual of Manners for Polite Infants. The book is still in print, and I don’t think it was ever out of print.
I didn’t mean to imply that he introduced the word with its current meaning, just that he seems to be the first to use it.
The main character in Rebecca Lisle’s novel Copper is another example.
Fun fact: bromides of various things (potassium, lithium, etc) were prescribed as soporifics back in the day, and by the turn of the century or so, “bromide” had become a) a generic lay term for a soporific or sedative, and b) slang for a boring person and / or overused platitude. This is how the word is used by Burgess; I suspect he popularized rather than originated the term, and I don’t think his chemistry background had much to do with it.
Edit: Foo, didn’t read far enough down the thread before posting, other people beat me to it…
True enough, but after all these years it has been pronounced differently, isn’t this different pronunciation now official?
What’s the difference between those pronunciations? Is it “ah” vs “aw”? Or “oh”? Or something? I ask because I personally would pronounce quark and quork the same way.
I can distinguish a difference between the two pronunciations if I really try, but they’re close enough that I probably wouldn’t notice someone using one or the other, and I can’t say which one I habitually use.
Yeah, the creator of the GIF insists that it’s supposed to be pronounced “Jiff.” But if you pronounce it that way, I’m :rolleyes: at you (not to mention that the G stands for “graphics,” not “giraffics”).
That’s how I’ve always pronounced it, like the peanut butter. I’m not sure where I got it from, but “giff” sounds weird to me.
There’s also an Antimony (Antimony Price) in one of Seanan McGuire’s series, the one that starts with Discount Apocalypse.
I suspect you pronounce the vowel sound in “quark” like you say “quarter”.
Try saying it as “qu” in front of “ark”.
Quork would rhyme with cork.
Of course if you pronounce Noah’s Ark like Noah’s Ork then all bets are off.
Okay, okay, but either way “squark” would seem awkward to pronounce.
If this Supersymmetry counterpart to the quark is ever found, I recommend renaming it as…
TWERK!
The difference between are and ore.
That’s probably part of where the disconnect comes from.
Vowels is mushy anyway. Dialects mangle them all over the place.
As well as a pencil-and-paper RPG system during the 80’s and 90’s.