I understand how the planets got their names, but who decided our planet should be called Earth?

Answer 1

Not sure exactly who, but there's something in the Bible which goes on about God made the Earth [world] in X number of days. Quicker'n building Roma apparently. So best bet is that God named it Earth. In any event, putting it this way settles all the arguments.

Just one small point however. Do people in other lands outside the English speaking nations actually call it Earth? Or, do they have another name?

Oh, by the way, all the moons of the planet Uranus are named after characters from Wm.Shakespeares play, Mid Summer Nights Dream. There's a character in the play called, I think, Bottom. Someone obviously had a great sense of humour. I mean, Bottom and Uranus!!

Answer 2

Considering most people in the world don't call it Earth, that would be rather presumptuous. It has different names in different languages. The different names mostly derive, as others have mentioned, from names for the ground, soil etc. In Italian it is called Terra. It has little to do with the Bible, since this was translated from Aramaic, Greek and many other languages. The word Earth would most certainly have been a man made translation of the original text.

Answer 3

"Earth" goes back to the ancient division of all ordinary matter matter into the four elements - earth, water, air, and fire. Earth was designated the heaviest, and least 'heavenly'. Water flowed over the earth, air floated above both, and fire rose through the air to the threshold of the celestial spheres, where the planets and stars embodied a fifth element - quintessence.
By the time Copenicus sent our planet whirling around the sun, it was too late to change the old name, so we are still on a planet known as "Earth".

Answer 4

It developed over time as part of the English language. Earth is Old English and German in origin, related to the Old Saxon 'ertha', the Dutch 'aerde', and the German 'erda'. Those words really meant the ground or soil, so it came to mean the planet itself.

The planet names are derived from Roman and Greek mythology, except for the name Earth.

Answer 5

Sci-Fi has relaxing with this sometimes - Ming the cruel: "what's your puny planet observed as ? dirt ?". oftentimes authors use Terra (from the latin), for this reason Terrans not earthlings for human beings from Earth. for sure that is in basic terms Earth in English. E.g. that is l. a. Terre in French. "Earth" predates the assumption of earth as a around planet, a minimum of in elementary information (although I doubt our ancestors have been idiots; the stupid pictures of a flat Earth have been probable drawn via some guy who under no circumstances went outdoors).

Answer 6

We did the various linguistic inhabitants of this planet. it's not really a name per se it just means ground. In Greek Gai is ground. You will find that that's what everybody calls it .The GROUND

Answer 7

And since "Earth"can also mean "earth", I wonder how close our planet came to being called "Soil"... or "Ground"...

Answer 8

E. Arthur Smith

Answer 9

Dont know, I will ask God next time we are having a chat.

Answer 10

Benjamin Santiago O'Toole . . . 4750 B.C.