Americium's name was chosen by direct analogy with the element sitting immediately above it in the periodic table. In laying out the actinides beneath the lanthanides, Seaborg placed americium below europium, the element named for Europe, and so named the new element for the corresponding New World continent, the Americas. Its neighbour curium was named, in the same act, by analogy with gadolinium above it. Americium has no ancient, mythological or alchemical tradition, being a synthetic creation of the Manhattan Project era, but it holds the distinction of being perhaps the only transuranium element most people own, sealed in milligram traces inside the smoke alarms of ordinary homes, where its steady alpha radiation quietly stands guard against fire.
A typical household smoke detector contains only about a quarter of a microgram of americium-241, sealed behind a foil that blocks its alpha particles entirely except for the small window that ionises air inside the sensor chamber, a quantity regulators consider safe for ordinary use and disposal, though most jurisdictions still recommend returning old detectors to designated collection points rather than simply discarding them with household rubbish. That tiny quantity is nonetheless enough to have made smoke detectors, quietly, the single largest consumer application of any transuranium element.