Nominative determinism

At some point, an English chemist refined a metal from a rock and named it 'columbium,' metonymizing the American origin of the sample. His obscuration of the Connecticut origin of the rock proved fine: element 41, like America itself, solved a number and variety of 20th-century problems incomprehensible to its 18th-century discoverers. Cruelty-free capacitors? Check. Lunar module valve components? Of course. The largest crystals for fusion-enabling laser harmonic generation in existence? Easily. Rocket nozzles? The nozzle extension wasn't even enough: we wanted the whole engine full of the stuff so NARloy is out, GRCop and its beautiful columbium intermetallic are in. The majority of superconducting alloy in use? No doubt. Crystal-growth inhibitor for nanomaterials? (Trying to cut down on that one actually, but try columbium anyway).

You can even call it niobium. If you must.