"Interestingly the "Rutherford unit (RU)" had already been proposed as a unit of atomic distance by physicists, whereby 1 RU was defined as equal to 1 x 10-13 m 4,5."
"It was named after the New Zealand physicist, Lord Ernest Rutherford (1871–1937) 2."
"The rutherford was introduced to replace the curie which was felt to be an impractical unit. It was introduced by I F Curtis and E U Condon in 1946, and in 1949 its official use was ratified by the National Research Council of the USA 3. It never gained wide acceptance as a unit, and the curie remained the preferential unit for radioactive decay until the becquerel was adopted in 1975."
"History and etymology"