If other moons, such as jupiter's moons, have names, then why is our moon called 'the moon'?

Question

If other moons, such as jupiter's moons, have names, then why is our moon called 'the moon'?

Shouldn't our moon have a special name too?

Answer 1

It does, its official name is Luna.
But since we only have one moon, and everyone knows what we're talking about when we say "the moon", that has just become the common term.
And it was the first we knew about for thousands of years, and so it had and still has a special place in our language (just like the sun, it doesn't have a formal name other than Sol which is just "sun" in Latin).

Answer 2

Our Moon has just been called "The Moon" for thousands of years before anybody ever knew there were other Moons. If there is only one, it doesn't need a name. Just like "The Sun" does not have a name even though we now know that it is just like many other stars that do have special names. Would you give "The Sky" a name just because our sky is not the only one, there are other skies on other planets? So to the ancient people who looked up into The sky and saw The Sun and The Moon, it didn't seem necessary to name them.

Answer 3

Our moon is called the Moon. It needs no other name because we only have one, and it would be pretentious to rename it now. We called it the Moon long, long before we knew there were any others.

When Galileo discovered the moons of Jupiter, he originally called them stars. Later when it was discovered a "star" was something else altogether, it seemed natural to call them "moons" instead, since they're basically the same thing as the Moon.

Of course, people who don't speak English call it something else. So call it whatever you want.

Answer 4

The moon was discovered and named well before we knew any other planets existed and or had moons. Because of that fact we didn't know there were others to worry about giving ours a unique name. If there were only one dog we knew of it would probably be named dog. j

Answer 5

The Moon has had a lot of names:
Luna by the Romans
Selene and Artemis by the Greeks
Nanna to the Mesopotamians
Thoth of the Egyptians
Tsukuyomi to the Japanese
Tecciztecatl to the Aztecs

Answer 6

Moon is a specific name that became a generic name much later. Sort of like Kleenex. People refer to any tissue paper as a kleenex, even though usually it's not made by the same company.

Answer 7

The moon is a name for our satellite. Satellites are anything that revolves around a planet. Jupiter has satelittes with names just like our satellite. People just call other planets satellites moons for an easy term but they aren't.

Answer 8

It sort of does...Luna, latin for moon.

We just call it the moon out of habit, it is our closest and the first moon - gazed on by man for centuries.

It just like Earth should be called 'Gaia' after the goddess of earth, but the term Earth seems more personal and human.

Answer 9

It does. It's called Luna.

Also, the sun is called Sol. Blame it on the Romans.