After G. N. Lewis (1875-1946) proposed the term “photon” in 1926, many physicists adopted it as a more apt name for Einstein’s light quantum. However, Lewis’ photon was a concept of a very different kind, something few physicists knew or cared about. In fact, it turns out that the term “photon” was not novel, as the same term was proposed or used earlier, apparently independently, by at least four other scientists. Three of the four early proposals were related to physiology or visual perception, and only one to quantum physics. Priority belongs to the American physicist and psychologist L. T. Troland (1889-1932), who coined the word in 1916, and five years later it was independently introduced by the Irish physicist J. Joly (1857-1933). Then in 1925 a French physiologist, René Wurmser (1890-1993), wrote about the photon, and in July 1926 his compatriot, the physicist F. Wolfers (ca. 1890-1971), did the same in the context of optical physics. None of the four pre-Lewis versions of “photon” were well known and they were soon forgotten., Kdy se objevil termín "foton" a v jakém kontextu? O tom pojednává tento článek významného dánského historika fyziky H. S. Kragha. Obecně se soudí, že za "foton" vděčíme slavnému americkému chemikovi G. N. Lewisovi, který tento termín stvořil roku 1926. Je to pravda, ale Kragh ukazuje jednak, že to bylo v jiném kontextu, než jak chápeme foton dnes, jednak, že několik jiných badatelů navrhlo a použilo termín foton již před Lewisem - na ně se však zapomnělo. Nakonec tedy můžeme konstatovat, že "foton" se zrodil několikrát v období deseti let zhruba před sto lety. (jv), Helge S. Kragh., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy