Timur is Turkic for iron.

Timur = the Iron Man—a convenient coincidence for someone who has spent a career on materials. The field came first. The namesake had followed.

I was born in Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan. In Tatar, iron is spelled “тимер”—my name is the same word, worn down from the Proto-Turkic “temür”. Its most famous bearer reached Europe as Tamerlane, from Timur-e Lang, “Timur the Lame.”

As names go, a solid one to inherit :) Iron is the element we date civilizations by, and still the most produced metal on the planet.