Why is the "Steel" type specifically named "Steel"?

Any ideas to why GameFreak may have specifically chosen “Steel” as an element when they could’ve just named it “Metal” (like what the TCG eventually did).

Pleaselog inorregisterto add a comment.

Well, there is no particular ‘reason’ for this. Maybe, at the time, it seemed like a good idea, more than 10 years ago. To be honest, only GameFreak can answer this satisfactorily, and Ihighly doubtthey have an advanced reason such as legal issues or coding issues or so on.

But, one thing pops up to the mind in my opinion. One of the Pokemon to gain the newly introduced steel type in Gen II wasMagnemiteand its evolution,Magneton. These Pokemon are based onmagnets, which are closely associated with steel,and others metals are you said were too generic, i.e., not specific.Thus, to show the ‘magnet’ part of it, it may have been named Steel (although Iron seems better, but ‘refined’ or ‘advanced’ or ‘processed’ iron is steel, which may have won out due to its superiority over iron in physical properties.)

Once again, this is merely my opinion in this matter.

From my knowledge, steel is a very strong metal. If the type was called “metal-type” it wouldn’t sound strong, and also it sounds a little boring. “Steel-type” on the other hand, sounds very strong, however this is just my theory.