Samarium is isolated as an impure oxide…

Samarium is isolated as an impure oxide and spectroscopically identified as a new element in 1879 by French chemist Paul Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran.

It is named for the Scandinavian mineral samarskite from which he isolates the element. (Long used in pyrophoric alloys used in cigarette lighter flints, the metal will not be isolated in relatively pure form until the late twentieth century.)