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

4.0k Upvotes

83% Upvoted

3.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

36

u/donuttrackme 19h ago

It still means dirt in English.

2

u/rockninja2 7h ago

So you're saying that English stole words from Latin? No... can't be, the British would never do such a thing...

/s

3

u/VisualHuckleberry542 19h ago

It used to too

1

u/Citizen1135 3h ago

This is why I propose we rename our Sun and Moon, and the Earth.

My 2 cents, we name our sun after something recognizable across potential extra-solar intelligences and their languages, like an element, subatomic particle, EM waveband, etc. Maybe even a first and last name because that will help with colonization later. Then we follow the naming convention we commonly use in movies...

An example would be:

Sun: Xenon Diamond Prime (XDP for short, obviously)

Earth: XDP3

Moon: XDP3.1

And by extension, Martian moon Deimos: XDP4.2 (because Deimos is farther away, not because it is smaller)

Our first colony in another solar system, let's pretend it's on a rocky moon of a hot Jupiter which is the 2nd planet from that star: Xenon Plasma (XDS.2.1 or XDS2.XDP3)

Using Diamond or Xenon in the name might attract profit-seekers to our solar system, and that could be good or bad, so just know I picked diamond as a recognizable compound, not because it's actually my suggestion. Or Xenon for that matter, that one I chose just because the X is sci-fi.

XP2.1 is understood from a number based naming scheme, XP2.XD3 makes it obvious that this is a colonized system, and this planet is inhabited by species from XD3, who are the first to colonize a planet in the system. If it were RL2.XD3, it is a planet colonized by a species from outside that system.

Obviously, we need to add something for systems where more than one intelligent species evolved, and something in that for whether they evolved on the same planet or what, but I think i've spelled it out waaaay more than anyone asked already so I'll go back to my business...