Odorless and colorless gas m.p. -209.86 ºC; -345.75 ºF b.p. -195.8 ºC; -320.4 ºF density 0.0012506 g/cc; 0.0780724 pounds/cubic foot	memory peg
	1772 Daniel Rutherford, England
	νιτρον (nitron) = salpeter + γεινομαι (geinomai) = to engender, bring forth ⇒ bringing forth salpeter (Greek) named by Jean Antoine Chaptal in 1790

It was known during the 18th century that air contains at least two gases, one of which supports combustion and life, and the other of which does not. In the 1770s several chemists studied the so-called "burnt" or "phlogisticated" air (N₂; from Greek φλογιστος = burnt), as air without oxygen was then called, but Daniel Rutherford (1749-1819), a medical student in Scotland, was first to publish his discovery of "noxious air" (nitrogen) in his dissertation Disseratio inauguralis de aere fixo dicto, aut mephitico (Inaugural dissertation on the air called fixed or mephite), dated 12 September 1772. He showed that the air in which animals had breathed, even after removal of the exhalated carbon dioxide, was no longer able to burn a candle.
Before 1772 Henry Cavendish (1731-1810) wrote to Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) a letter describing burnt air by passing air repeatedly over red-hot charcoal and then removing the fixed air with caustic potash, he named it mephitic air. Also Carl Wilhelm Scheele discovered it in this time.

In 1775-76 Antoine Lavoisier suggested that this gas was an element and proposed in 1789 the name Azote, because it did not support respiration and was therefore "lifeless". The name is derived from Greek α (a privativum meaning "the opposite of") and ζώω [zōō] = to life. In his Traité élémentaire de chimie of 1789 Lavoisier wrote:

Not everyone was satisfied with this name. Therefore Christoph Girtanner calls it Salpeterstoff because of its property being the basis for "Salpetersyra".
Jean Antoine Chaptal (1756-1832) supposed in his Éléments de chimie of 1790 the name nitrogène: a combination of the Greek words νιτρον [nitron] (cf. Natrium) = sodium carbonate, salpeter (in late Middle ages in use for potassium nitrate), and French géne from Greek γεινομαι (geinomai) = to engender, bring forth, (cf. Oxygen, where is made clear that in naming this element, Lavoisier referred to γεινομαι and not to γενναω (gennaō), to produce, as was assumed later). The name means "making soda/salpeter" (Cf. Sodium / Natrium.)).
An other proposed name was Alcaligène.

• German: ersticken = to suffocate, and Stoff = material.
• Dutch: stikken = to suffocate, and stof = material.
  
• Czech: dusit = to suffocate.
  
• Japanese: 窒 = Chinese character for stop up, obstruct ("chitsu") and 素 "so" (elementary, principle, naked, or uncovered).

During the eclipse of 1869, astronomers recorded unexpected spectral lines in the Sun's corona that they ascribed to the presence of a new element which they called Coronium (see Iron). Similar lines were later discovered to originate nearer the Earth; these were attributed to Geocoronium. The Swedish astrophysicist Bengt Edlén found in the 1950s that the lines thought to be caused by Geocoronium were produced by atomic Nitrogen emitting radiation in the Earth's upper atmosphere.

• Mary Elvira Weeks, Discovery of the Elements, comp. rev. by Heny M. Leicester (Easton, Pa.: Journal of Chemical Education, 1968), pp. 191-211.