The (English) names of the planets were dubbed by ancient Romans (and presumably before that the Greeks) based on their ancient gods that few people believe in, hell, most people don’t know why the planets are named such anymore.

If I remember correctly:

  • Mercury was named after the messenger god as it travelled the sky the fastest (shortest orbit around the Sun)
  • Venus was named after the goddess of love and beauty as it was the second brightest object in the night sky, after the Moon
  • Mars was named after the god of war, as it was blood red
  • Jupiter was named after the king of the Gods (Zeus in Greek mythos), I guess because it was the largest? Also, it was the second slowest planet the ancient Romans could see
  • Saturn was named after Jupiter’s father (Cronus in Greek mythos) as it moved in the sky even slower than Jupiter
  • Uranus was discovered around 1800s and named after the father of Saturn and the titans, and a bunch of other legends. I guess going from grandson to grandfather when going from Jupiter to Uranus? Uranus was also the god of the sky I think (at least, initially. Then I think Uranus was killed by Saturn, who was then subsequently killed by Jupiter because Saturn kept on eating his own children)
  • Finally, Neptune was discovered later, and named after the Roman god of the sea since it looked very blue

Sorry Pluto, but you’re not a planet anymore. I think Pluto was named after the god of the underworld (equiv. of Hades), it was that or the god of wealth. Maybe both?

Given all the additional information, data, images, etc. we know of the planets, if they were to be renamed, what should the new names be? What are some good names that let people know a signature characteristic of each planet? (ideally, including people unfamiliar with Roman mythos)

Silly names are okay too, but only if they are really good

If you are a Pluto believer, you could give a new name for it too.

Note that many non-English languages name the planets using a different system. For example, Chinese names the naked-eye-observable five after the 5 “elements” (e.g. Mars is literally translated as “fire star”, Saturn is “earth star”), then the newly discovered Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are translations of the western names (e.g. Neptune is “king/ruler of the sea star”)

edit: Some people like 1-8. I guess that would match with hypothetical Planet 9? (or X if you’re a Pluto believer) Wouldn’t be all that helpful though, and it makes the planets feel rigid, boring, and not very fun at all.

  • Mesa@programming.dev
    1·
    24 minutes ago

    If this happened near or post-interplanetary colonization, I’m reasonably confident that they’d be named after or by whichever corporation buys and takes the largest influence over the planet.

    We all know Elon wants to name Mars Planet X, so let’s agree now to blow it up as soon as that happens.

    Earth’s name would probably be left alone. I’d imagine Google going after Saturn and maybe preserving the name too, maybe giving it a little name if they hadn’t blown every word in the English language on dead projects.

    Microsoft, in their lack of vision, would name Mercury Microsoft (if they’re still around by this point).

  • ...m...@ttrpg.network
    1·
    1 hour ago

    dasher dancer prancer vixen comet cupid donner blitzen

    (plus rudolph taunting everyone from the kuiper belt)

  • fartographer@lemmy.world
    3·
    6 hours ago

    I think your question is egotistical. We should send letters to the planets asking them what they want to be called. Until then, we can name all of them variants of “TheFartographer” to celebrate my incredible humility.

  • KingOfTheCouch@lemmy.ca
    2·
    1 day ago

    I don’t know about the rest but we gotta rename Uranus so people stop making juvenile jokes. I propose Urectum.

  • mech@feddit.org
    271·
    2 days ago

    Mercury = Moth (circling closest to the sun)
    Venus = Ant (has acid)
    Earth = Scarab (shining blue where it isn’t covered in dung)
    Mars = Firebug (red)
    Jupiter = Dragonfly (biggest insect)
    Saturn = Wasp (has rings around it)
    Uranus = Phasmid (slowest moving)
    Neptune = Midge (insect found in the coldest climates)
    Pluto = Tick (tiny and not actually an insect)

  • Contramuffin@lemmy.world
    1·
    1 day ago

    I mean… If we treated the sun to be just another star (ie, if the astronomers got their way), the planets would probably be called Sol b, Sol c, Sol d, Sol e, Sol f, Sol g, Sol h, and Sol i.

    Sol a would be reserved for the sun, of course.

  • gjoel@programming.dev
    121·
    2 days ago

    Muffin
    Bluey
    Bingo <- you are here
    Lucky
    Bandit
    Chili
    Stripe
    Trixie

    I know earth might be more bluey than Venus, but I would love to live on Bingo. And we’re kinda like fleas anyway so I think the theme is a good one.

  • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
    11·
    2 days ago

    Grey, white, green, red, stripey, ringy, lightblue and darkblue

    EDIT: I was misinformed about uranus and neptune. Instead I suggest re-renaming them to “Blue” and “splotchy Blue”

    • e0qdk@reddthat.com
      5·
      2 days ago

      darkblue

      It’s also light blue; pictures of it were just always published with exaggerated colors for a long time. It’s actually more like this if you do better color calibration, apparently:

      • Zoot@reddthat.com
        2·
        8 hours ago

        Does “color calibration” mean what it would look like to the naked eye, if we were up close and personal?

        • e0qdk@reddthat.com
          1·
          7 hours ago

          Yeah; I think so. When I got this file originally, I think it was from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Neptune_Voyager2_color_calibrated.png

          which says:

          Neptune on 1989-08-17, taken by NASA’s Voyager 2 probe. This color image was composed of three frames, orange, green, and blue, taken by Voyager 2’s imaging system. This color image has been calibrated to best represent Neptune’s true color and appearance. Based on: (in English) Irwin, Patrick G J (2023-12-23). “Modelling the seasonal cycle of Uranus’s colour and magnitude, and comparison with Neptune”. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 527 (4): 11521–11538. DOI:10.1093/mnras/stad3761. ISSN 0035-8711

          It looks like I re-compressed the version I posted with webp to reduce the file size for quicker viewing on lemmy – so the colors in that are a little off from the PNG on Wikipedia, but are still closer than the classic enhanced color image.

  • SanguinePar@lemmy.world
    81·
    2 days ago

    I’d go with:

    Mercury - Who
    Venus - What
    Earth - I Dunno
    Mars - Why
    Jupiter - Because
    Saturn - Naturally
    Uranus - Tomorrow
    Neptune - Today
    Pluto - I Don’t Give A Darn

  • palordrolap@fedia.io
    6·
    2 days ago

    Innie, Spinny, Sh-thole, Bob; Spotty, Hula, Turquoise, Outie. (Phteven)

    Bonus bonus: Cark. Ceres gets to keep its initial like Pluto.

    Spinny is ironic.

    If you want serious… uh, well you could attempt to apply exoplanet order-of-discovery and label things Sol x where x is the order letter, but I think that gives (Sol) c, d, a, e, f, g, h, i. “b” would be the Moon, stricken from the list, or renamed to a-something once it was identified as a non-planet.