Cronstedt gives the name tung sten (meaning heavy stone) in 1755 to scheelite, one of the mineral forms of the undiscovered element now known as tungsten in English, French, and many other languages as the name of the element, but not in the Nordic countries.

The alternative name "wolfram" (or "volfram") is used in most European (especially Germanic and Slavic) languages, and is derived from the mineral wolframite, which is the origin of its chemical symbol, W.

The name "wolframite" is derived from German "wolf rahm" ("wolf soot" or "wolf cream"), the name given to tungsten by Johan Gottschalk Wallerius in 1747.

This, in turn, derives from "lupi spuma", the name Georg Agricola used for the element in 1546, which translates into English as "wolf's froth", and is a reference to the large amounts of tin consumed by the mineral during its extraction.