On October 2, 2000, NIST announced the selection of the Rijndael Block Cipher, developed by the Belgian cryptographers Dr. Joan Daemen and Dr. Vincent Rijmen, as the proposed AES algorithm. Twofish and RC6 were also candidates. Blowfish is also a symmetric algorithm but wasn’t a finalist for a replacement for DES.
Source: KRUTZ, Ronald L. & VINES, Russel D., The CISSP Prep Guide: Mastering the Ten Domains of Computer Security, John Wiley & Sons, 2001, Chapter 4: Cryptography (page 152).