The name beryllium comes

(via Latin: Beryllus and French: Béryl) from the Greek βήρυλλος, bērullos, beryl, from Prakrit veruliya (वॆरुलिय*), from Pāli veḷuriya (वेलुरिय); veḷiru (भेलिरु) or, viḷar (भिलर्), "to become pale," in reference to the pale semiprecious gemstone beryl.

The original source of the word "Beryllium" is the Sanskrit word:

वैडूर्य vaidurya-, which is of Dravidian origin and could be derived from the name of the modern city of Belur.

[28] For about 160 years, beryllium was also known as glucinum or glucinium (with the accompanying chemical symbol "Gl"[29]), the name coming from the Greek word for sweet:

γλυκυς, due to the sweet taste of its salts. The salts are toxic, though, so this is a dangerous practice.
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Applications

It is estimated that most beryllium is used for military applications, so information is not readily available.

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[edit]Radiation windows

Beryllium target which "converts" a proton beam into a neutron beam

A square beryllium foil mounted in a steel case to be used as a window between a vacuum chamber and an X-ray microscope.

Beryllium is highly transparent to X-rays owing to its low atomic number.

Because of its low atomic number and very low absorption for X-rays, the oldest and still one of the most important applications of beryllium is in radiation windows for X-ray tubes.

Extreme demands are placed on purity and cleanliness of Be to avoid artifacts in the X-ray images.

Thin beryllium foils are used as radiation windows for X-ray detectors, and the extremely low absorption minimizes the heating effects caused by high intensity, low energy X-rays typical of synchrotron radiation.