Question: If you could name the planets yourself, what would you name them?

Karen Masters answered on 17 Mar 2012:

I like how they are named now – after ancient gods.

The five classic planets (the ones you can see with just your eyes, which have been known since ancient times) got their names first

Mercury – after the Roman god who was a messanger – because it moves across the sky so fast
Venus – after the Roman goddess of love, I assume because it’s such a beautiful sight in the evening sky – so helpful with late night dates…?
Mars – after the Roman god of war, because it glows red, and red is associated with war
Jupiter – after the king of the Roman gods, which seems right since it’s the biggest in the solar system
Saturn – after the Roman god of agriculture (OK I don’t see the link here…. but did you know that Saturday is named after Saturn?)

Then more recently we found out about Uranus and Neptune. Uranus was discovered by the English Astronomer William Herschel, who originally decided to name it “George’s Star” after the King at the time (George III). Non English astronomers weren’t keen on this, and eventually settled on Uranus who was the father of Saturn in Roman mythology – they argued this was a good idea because Saturn was the father of Jupiter, so it made sense.

Neptune was the first planet to be discovered using maths – it’s presence affects the orbit of Uranus just a little bit, and it was predicted to be there before actually found. Both British and French astronomers claimed its discovery, which caused a bit of tension at the time – and they were eventually jointly credited. Like for Uranus lots of names were suggested at first – the name that stuck Neptune, refers to the Roman god of the sea, which helps me to remember that Neptune is blue…

I always think the story of naming Pluto is lovely. Pluto was discovered quite recently (in the 1930s by an American) and they actually ran a competition to name it. It was won by an 11 year old girl from Oxford (called Venetia Burney Phair) – who suggested Pluto – the god of the underworld (since the planet was presumably cold and dark).

I wrote about her in 2003 when I was answering questions at “Ask an Astronomer” http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=661. She only died a couple of years ago.