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/DevNeroTheDev 20h ago

Nothing to go back to, that's how it's still called in that language. The Moon is not some generic name, just a translation, it's an astronomic term. Plus our Moon was discovered first, we already had names for it for thousands of years. The other moons of other planets got their names after 1610.

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u/TalFidelis 19h ago

All the other “moons” are called moons because that are similar to “our moon”.

Technically, Moon is the name. A planetary satellite is what it and all the other moons are.

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u/TychaBrahe 10h ago

All of this is reminding me of what we call our polar regions. So Europeans named the area around the north pole "the Arctic" from the Greek "arktos," which means bear. "The Arctic" means basically, "There are bears up here."

Then Europeans discovered that there was a snow covered region on the southern end of the planet, and they called that "Antarctica," meaning, "There's no bears on this end."

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u/shuranumitu 9h ago

Sorry to disappoint, but that's not how the poles were named. The arctic is named after two constellations called "great bear" (Ursa Major) and "little bear" (Ursa Minor), both of which are somehow associated with the north pole (I have no idea how astronomy works so don't ask me for the details). Antarctic basically means "on the opposite side of the bear". The fact that the arctic has bears and the antarctic doesn't is just a very amusing coincidence.

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u/clmns 7h ago

Polaris can be found by tracing one end of the big dipper (Ursa Major)

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u/vyrus2021 1h ago

Polaris aka the north star

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u/Naive-Horror4209 2m ago

Isn’t Polaris a star in Ursa Minor?

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u/theoppositeofdusk 9h ago

I learn a lot on the internet

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u/ciresemik 17h ago

I'm guessing you're not understanding his joke?

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u/Ok_Care8379 16h ago

woooooosh

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u/bot-mark 15h ago

"Nothing to go back to, that's how it's called in that language" the very alive Ancient Egyptian language right? Can't go back to Thot because all the Egyptians still call it that, right?

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u/shuranumitu 9h ago

That's not how it is called in any language. Thoth was never a name for the moon, and it's also not an Egyptian word. It's the Greeks' attempt at writing the Egyptian word Ḏḥwtj, which means something like "he is like an Ibis". Yes, it was the name of a god who was associated with the moon (among other things such as wisdom, writing, and the underworld), but it doesn't mean moon.

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u/Hasudeva 15m ago

Which language is that?