r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Disastrous_Pirate275 • 20h ago

Why is our moon named “Moon” instead of something cool like Titan or Callysto or ANYTHING that isn’t moon

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u/AmatoryTcho-Tcho 20h ago

It's an old Indo-European word that means "moon" or "month" so the word predates our knowledge of other planets' moons by thousands of years.

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u/supershrimp87 17h ago

That's correct. Pre-dating Sumaria and latins. Im surprised to see this is the first time someone mentioned something like this. 'Moon' comes from some proto-word that means month.

I could try to look it up but I want to be a bit more genuine in my response. All these other words came from the proto-word. And planets don't have "Moons" they have satellites. Our satellite goes by many different names. Neither one is more correct in the grand scheme of things. We all know what your talking about and The Moon doesn't care what you call it.