This polyhedron has come to be known as a “Bucky Ball” or “buckminsterfullerene” because of Buckminster Fuller’s influence on the scientists

The Cuboctahedron (Vector Equilibrium) is a geometric model that Fuller talks about extensively in Synergetics 1 & 2.

Sphere packing 12 unit-radius spheres around a nucleus will produce a geometric shape that Buckminster Fuller named the Vector Equilibrium.