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Planets named after gods
The short answer
Seven of the eight planets are named for gods, with Earth the exception. Uranus is the odd one out: the Uranus page says it is the only one of the eight whose English name comes from Greek mythology. The five bright planets were named in antiquity, and the three later ones were named in 1782, 1846 and 1930 by people whose proposals are recorded. Of eight entries below, four are Attested, four are Scholarly and none is a Popular claim. Pluto is included although it became a dwarf planet in 2006.
The split matters for how much each name can be traced. The ancient names rest on the reference pages' account of Roman practice. The modern names rest on dated proposals by named people.
Planet by planet
The table gives each planet, the god it is named for, the Greek counterpart and the other names the pages record. The marks are explained at the end.
| Planet | Named for | Greek counterpart | Other names | What the sources record | Strength | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mercury | Mercurius, messenger of the gods | Greek Hermes, Stilbon | Babylonian Nabu; Chinese Hour Star | Pliny the Elder recorded that some Romans associated the planet with Apollo instead. Greeks knew the morning and evening appearances as one planet by about 350 BC. | Attested | Wikipedia: Mercury (planet) |
| Venus | Venus, goddess of love | Greek Aphrodite, Phosphorus and Hesperus | Babylonian Ninsi'anna and Dilbat; Chinese Tàibái | The Greeks first thought the morning and evening appearances were two stars. Lucifer and Vesper are the Roman translations of the Greek names. | Scholarly | Wikipedia: Venus |
| Mars | Mars, god of war | Greek Ares, Pyroeis | Sumerian Nergal; East Asian fire star | The Romans named it Mars. Its moons Phobos and Deimos were named in 1877 after twin figures who accompanied Ares into battle. | Scholarly | Wikipedia: Mars |
| Jupiter | Jupiter, chief god | Greek Zeus, Phaethon | Babylonian Marduk; Hindu Brihaspati; Chinese year star | The Romans first called it Iuppiter Stella. The link with Zeus drew on Near Eastern influences and was fully established by the 4th century BC. | Scholarly | Wikipedia: Jupiter |
| Saturn | Saturnus, god of wealth and agriculture | Greek Cronus, Phainon | Hindu Shani; Chinese earth star | The Romans equated Saturnus with Cronus. Modern Greek keeps the planet's name Kronos. | Scholarly | Wikipedia: Saturn |
| Uranus | Ouranos, Greek god of the sky | Greek Ouranos | None recorded | Herschel discovered it in 1781 and proposed Georgium Sidus. Johann Elert Bode proposed Uranus in March 1782. The Nautical Almanac Office switched in 1850. | Attested | Wikipedia: Uranus |
| Neptune | Neptune, Roman god of the sea | Greek Poseidon | None recorded | Galle proposed Janus, Challis Oceanus and Le Verrier Neptune. Struve supported Neptune on 29 December 1846. | Attested | Wikipedia: Neptune |
| Pluto | Pluto, Roman god of the underworld | Greek Hades | None recorded | Eleven-year-old Venetia Burney suggested the name in 1930. Her nomination was the first of about 150 received. The IAU classified Pluto as a dwarf planet in 2006. | Attested | Wikipedia: Pluto |
The five wanderers
The word comes from the Greek planḗtai, wanderers, objects that moved across the background stars. In antiquity the term covered the Sun, the Moon and five visible points of light: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Babylonian astronomers identified Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, and these remained the only known planets until the telescope. The Greeks and Romans counted seven in Ptolemy's order from Earth: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Many cultures linked celestial bodies to gods, and Greek and Latin names correspond, as in Aphrodite and Venus, but it does not say which planets are named after Roman gods.
That makes the individual planet pages the main source for the five. Mercury is named for the Roman god of commerce and communication, whom the Romans equated with the Greek Hermes, and the page says the Romans chose him because the planet moves across the sky faster than any other. Its symbol is a stylized caduceus of Hermes, with a Christian cross added in the 16th century. Assyrian records on the MUL.APIN tablets, likely from around the 14th century BC, use a cuneiform name often rendered as the jumping planet, and the Babylonians called the planet Nabu, after the messenger of their gods. In Germanic paganism, Odin or Woden was linked with the planet and Wednesday.
Venus comes from the Roman goddess of love, and the page says no more about the goddess. The Babylonians called the planet Ninsi'anna in the Old Babylonian period and later Dilbat, glossed as divine lady, illumination of heaven. Old English has the poetic name Ēarendel, ray of light, and the Chinese called the morning Venus Tàibái, the Great White, and the evening Venus Chánggēng, the Excellent West One. The entry does not mention a Maya name.
The Romans named Mars after their god of war, and the Greeks commonly called the planet Ares. The Sumerians named it Nergal, the god of war and plague, and Mesopotamian texts call Mars the star of judgement of the fate of the dead. Egyptian astronomers knew its retrograde motion by 1534 BC. East Asian cultures call it the fire star, from the Wuxing system.
Jupiter takes its name from the chief god, from a compound meaning Father Sky-God, and the page links it to the etymology of Zeus. The Babylonians associated it with Marduk, chief of their pantheon from the Hammurabi period. Hindu astrologers named it after Brihaspati and call it Guru, teacher. The word jovial came to mean happy through medieval astrology. Simon Marius gave the four largest moons their names Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, and those names stuck.
Saturn is named after the Roman god of wealth and agriculture, the father of Jupiter. The Romans equated Saturnus with the Greek Cronus. Hindu astrology calls the planet Shani and says he judges people by their good and bad deeds. Chinese and Japanese culture called it the earth star. The Hebrew name is Shabbathai.
The three named in the modern era
William Herschel discovered Uranus on 13 March 1781 and first reported it as a comet. He wanted to call it Georgium Sidus, George's Star, to honour King George III. Others proposed Herschel, Astraea, Cybele, Neptune, Hypercronius, Transaturnis and Minerva. In March 1782 Johann Elert Bode proposed Uranus, the Latinised form of the Greek sky god Ouranos, and argued that it followed mythology and that Uranus was the father of the first Titans. Consensus took almost 70 years. The name was universal in 1850, when HM Nautical Almanac Office, the last holdout, switched from Georgium Sidus.
Neptune was first observed on 23 September 1846 by Johann Gottfried Galle, within about a degree of the position Urbain Le Verrier had predicted. Galle proposed Janus, James Challis proposed Oceanus, and Le Verrier proposed Neptune, falsely claiming the French Bureau des Longitudes had officially approved it. He had also tried to name the planet after himself, and this met resistance outside France. Friedrich Struve supported Neptune on 29 December 1846, citing the planet's colour through a telescope, and Neptune became the accepted name.
Pluto's name was suggested by a child. Venetia Burney, eleven and living in Oxford, suggested it to her grandfather Falconer Madan, who passed it to the astronomer Herbert Hall Turner. He cabled it to Lowell Observatory on 16 March 1930, three days after the discovery was announced. Pluto was the Roman god of the underworld, and the name is also an epithet for Hades.
The entry gives reasons the name suited the planet: both god and planet belong to gloomy regions, the god could make himself invisible as the planet had been, and the first two letters match the initials of Percival Lowell. The International Astronomical Union adopted a new definition of planet in 2006, and Pluto fails the third criterion, clearing its orbit. Many planetary astronomers still consider Pluto a planet.
The planets and the week
The weekday order in the calendar article comes from the same seven bodies. The Romans named the seventh day Saturday, Saturn's Day, in Latin Sāturni diēs, and the Mercury page records Odin or Woden linked with the planet and Wednesday. The Mercury entry also gives the Hindu name Budha, whose god was tied to Wednesday.
What the pages leave open
The Planet entry does not say who named Uranus or Neptune, so those two names rest on the individual pages. The Saturn entry does not mention Saturnalia and gives no Babylonian name. The Venus entry does not discuss the goddess, and the Mercury page does not mention Egyptian names. Where a page is silent, this article is too.
What the strength marks mean
Attested means a named person or writer made the naming or recorded the alternative: Pliny on Mercury, Bode on Uranus, Struve on Neptune and Burney on Pluto. Scholarly means a reference page states the god and the correspondence without an early source for who chose it. No planet name here is a Popular claim.
The sources are reference pages, and the original proposals were read through them.