Who named the planets? We have to thank Roman mythology for the naming of most of the 8 planets in the Solar System.
Who named the planets? The Romans gave names of gods and goddesses to the 5 planets that could be seen in the night sky with the naked eye.
Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, was named after the king of the Roman gods, while the reddish color of the planet Mars led the Romans to name it after their god of war. Mercury, which makes a complete trip around the Sun in just 88 Earth days, is named after the fast-moving messenger of the gods.
Saturn, the second largest planet in the solar system, takes 29 Earth years to make a complete revolution and is named after the god of agriculture. The Romans named the brightest planet, Venus, after their goddess of love and beauty.
Who named the planets and why were these choices made?
Two other planets, Uranus and Neptune, were discovered after the telescope was invented in the early 1600s.
Astronomer William Herschel, who is credited with discovering Uranus in 1781, wanted to name it “Georgium Sidus” (George’s Star) after the British ruler at the time, King George III. Other astronomers were interested in naming the planet Herschel.
It was the German astronomer Johann Bode who recommended the name Uranus, a Latinized version of the Greek sky god Ouranos; however, the name Uranus did not gain full acceptance until the mid-1800s, write History.
Neptune, the farthest planet from the Sun (makes one solar revolution once every 165 years), was first seen through a telescope in 1846 by German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle, using mathematical calculations by French astronomer Urbain Le Verrier and of the British astronomer John Couch Adams.
There was discussion about naming the planet after Le Verrier, but ultimately Neptune, which has a vivid blue color, was named after the Roman god of the sea.
How did Pluto get its name?
Pluto, which was classified as a planet in 1930 before being stripped of that celestial honor in 2006, was named after the Roman god of the underworld; this happened at the suggestion of an 11-year-old English girl named Venetia Burney.
How did Earth, the planet that is currently home to nearly 8 billion people, get its name?
Its English name “Earth” does not come from either Roman or Greek mythology, but rather from Old English and Germanic words meaning “earth”.