Why is planet earth called earth? all the others are named after mythical figures.?

Question

earth is an element, so was the element named after the planet or the planet after the element? was terra nova the original name?

Answer 1

Earth is the only planet whose name is not derived from Greek/Roman mythology. Earth comes from Old English and Germanic. In Roman Mythology, the goddess of the Earth was Tellus - the fertile soil, while the Greek goddes was Gaia, terra mater - Mother Earth.

Answer 2

Earth is called Terra (Ge)
Now If you believe in what the Greeks say, or do you believe what the Romans say?

Greeks believed that the planets etc were of different religions.
The Romans like everything else took it for there own.
Another words the both named them after gods. But interestingly the don't mean exactly the same.
Supposedly Terra (GE) married Coelum.
The Greeks conceived of Olympus, their highest mountain, on the boundaries of Macedonia and Thessaly, rising nearly ten thousand feet.They thought that was home of the greater gods. There Zeus, afterwords identified with Jupiter, had his palace, and presided over all gods.

Though these Gods of the world's dawn have fled from earth.
Its a very interesting but deep subject, but its beyond me to explain every God and planet way back in the Golden age. Perhaps this is why so many people are upset with the reclassification of Pluto.

Oh Siu02uk please do. I may give you more info :)

Answer 3

The planet Earth was first called " Terra ' the name given to a mythological god for being named ' The God of the Earth '.

Answer 4

Earth is named after the soil, because ancient people could not concieve of this being a planet. Now, gazing at the sky, they saw those wandering start (planet means wanderer) and figured there must be gods or something to be abvle to go around like that.
Mars must have been the god of war, because it was red, like blood. Venus must be the godess of beauty because it is so bright. Mercury must have been the god of speed, because it moves so quickly in the sky, and so on.
When Uranus and Neptune were discoverd, that practice was well established and was therefore kept.

About this element thing, this comes from the Greek philosopher Empedocles, who thought that everything was made from 4 basic elements in different proportions: earth, air, water and fire.
How he came up to this conclusion is lost to us as very little of his teaching survived -- it was mostly reported by others philosophers -- but I would think that he might have been drunk that day. But that is only my opinion.

Answer 5

In English it is called Earth. That's because when the gods came down they named it that, and later we named the planets after the gods. Some people have different names for the planets, which is why the gods hate them and they are evil.

Answer 6

Good question. It wasn't always called Earth. I would assume that Earth is a relatively modern name which evolved like most other names. The thing about the other planets is that the Greeks who are well into mythical things were the first astronomers and their names stuck and most are in use today. The new astronomers are lacking in ideas and tend to name new discoveries in space TN87 or such rubbish.

Answer 7

First of all the plants are named after the Roman gods. Now in Roman mythology Earth created Uranus and had kids which included the titans, Saturn was a titan. The titans had the gods and so forth, so earth is named after a mythical figure.

Answer 8

Question - How did planet earth get its name?

The word Earth originates from the Middle English word, erthe, which came from Old English eorthe; akin to Old High German erda. This then traces back to the Greek, eraze from the Hebrew erez, meaning ground.

Answer 9

because if we called it dirt instead the planet may just take offence and start another mass extinction,just as it did when one day little jonnny the apatosaurus said to his mother "ma,this place is shat and i want something nice to eat and some clean water and for that volcano to stop erupting".
250 million years later his remains were found buried under 200 feet of sedimentary rock.
his mother was never seen again.
dont dis the earth,its the only one we have.

Answer 10

The earth IS named after an ancient Goddess, called Eartha, a mother Goddess. However I can't recall which civilisation she belonged to at present.