(use your 3-D glasses to enjoy this pic!)Don't you think it's weird that our moon has no name? It's like you named your son "the son" or your dog "the dog," although I think many people have done just that. There are 169 moons in our solar system and they all have names. Well, okay, some just have number designations, like "S2003 J10" which I secretly call "Erika." And then there are all the cool mythological names like "Erinome," who in Roman mythology was a lover of Jupiter. I bet you can guess which planet Erinome is a moon of. Another fun one is "Juliet," which is a planet of Uranus. Some of the moons of Saturn were discovered as late as 2007. They found a bunch in 2005 including Bergelmir and Fenrir, which sound like Tolkien elven names. By 2007, they ran out of ideas and started giving them number designations. I hope they don't make kids in science class remember all 169 names and designations. Sheesh!
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But my original point was OUR moon has no name. That doesn't seem right at all. I've been trying to think of a good name for our moon. It would be nice to name it after Gene Roddenberry, but we have to remember the name has to go with all the prefixes like "half," full," "blue," and "crescent," and "Crescent Roddenberry" sounds like a weird dessert. We could name it "Nelson" because we are used to the phrase "half-Nelson." I think "Bob" would be good. I also like "Marilyn" and "Placido Domingo." I can't explain that last one. I suppose if we had to pick a name the masses would agree upon, we'd have to name the moon "Elvis." It seems to work with all the prefixes and most people like Elvis. The only problem is that over time, we would never say, "Look, it's a full Elvis." You know we'd all say, "Look! It's Fat Elvis!"
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What would you name the moon?
22 comments:
Our moon does too have a name. It's called Luna. Well, in Latin, at least.
For some reason, English called it Moon and then astronomy decided to use the term moon as the generic term for the natural satellites.
Go figure.
You know... It constantly amazes me how we, as a society, can overlook such an obvious thing. You have now set me on a quest to figure out WHY the moon has no name. I can be an excessive compulsive person and so who knows how long it will take to wash this out of my system! :-)
Geez... That compulsion didn't last long!!! I just read Ticknart's comment which he posted 60 seconds before mine! Unknowingly he has saved me tons of time! :-)
You're welcome, Dave.
And Geewits, as for calling the moon Elvis, when it's a new moon, would we say Elvis is dead?
I tried to go cross-eyed and thought I saw the word "Paris" emblazoned across it... am I right?
Ticknart,
~~Luna just means "moon." I guess you didn't take Spanish? During a new moon, we could say, "Elvis has left the building."
Dave,
~~Luna is not a name. Keep looking!
Gledwood,
~~I hope not! It's just a 3D pic. It looks great with 3D glasses.
LOL, LOL...Very Imaginative! And I wonder why, now that you mention it?
I think it needs a more Majestic kind of name...Something that is not associated with a person...I don't know what it shoud be, of course...But I bet you can come up with it!
I also thought it was called Luna. But, Elvis might be better.
Oh NOW you have gone and done it!! I thought that I was off the hook! Hmmm.... And Ticknart... I trusted you! LOL
I'll be back!
This is the best I could come up with...
The "official" name is the Moon, with a capital M. The satellites of
the other planets are called moons (small m). Similarly, stars are referred to as suns, but our star is the Sun.
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/ast99/ast99509.htm
I will continue to look... maybe ;-)
Naomi,
~~Something majestic? How about "Her Majesty?"
Ian,
~~I'm sticking with "luna" just meaning moon. After all the Spanish say "la luna," not "Luna."
Dave,
~~By that standard, we should just call Earth, "the Planet," with a capital P.
Geewits, but then what would all the poets rhyme with "spoon", "June", "tune", "swoon"... you get my drift. It would have to have the same sound. Hmmm, let me think about this one for a few minutes. I'll be back.
Okay, I found this on Wikipedia: "The dark and relatively featureless lunar plains humans can clearly see when the Moon is full are called maria (singular mare), Latin for seas, since they were believed by ancient astronomers to be filled with water."
So, how about Maria?
OK, that's just bizarre.
As soon as you said we should name the moon, the name Bob popped into my head.
So, great minds and all that, it's Bob. End of discussion and Dave can sleep at night.
PS: Damn I love this post!
Luna was a Roman goddess (Selene, in Greece). She drove her silver chariot across the sky almost every night. She was a being who was indistinguishable from the object in the night sky, through time and changes in culture she turned into the lump of rock there so most people just say Luna and moon are one in the same. (No, I didn't take Spanish, so I have to ask, do Spanish speakers call Io a "luna de Jupiter"? And if they do, then I'd argue that we took all of our proper nouns for that single body of rock and turned them into regular common nouns.)
Besides, when I hear the Moon called Luna, I get more images in my head when I just hear the word Moon. It's like Earth being "Gaia" and "Terra," those names mean so much more than Earth does. Even calling our star "Sol" means more to me than just Sun.
It could just be me, though.
Josie,
~~Yes there are quite a lot of moon songs. I LOVE "Blue Moon." A lot of things rhyme with "Bob." Maria wouldn't work because the Baptists would think the Catholics were trying to rule the world (and NO ONE better start a discussion on that! It's a joke!).
Jazz,
~~Okay. Bob it is!
Ticknart,
~~Everyone knows that Spanish people do not discuss las lunas de Jupiter in mixed company! I believe your love of "other" names for our space pieces comes from your love of science fiction. I get it. Now please go away. ;)
Well, I'm votin' fer Elvis!!
What a fascinating post and active discussion. I am against naming the moon Elvis. Why should we give our entertainers the moon? Aren't they already stars? So please name a star after Elvis but leave the moon to the common man. So, Bob's okay but I vote for Dave! Yes, Dave is a nice everyman type name......I guess I am thinking of the movie Dave which has an ordinary man posing as the U.S. president and doing a better job.
Wait! I change my mind. Let's call it Monty......hence the Full Monty?!
Tai,
~~I'm not a big Elvis fan but thought everyone else was. You and Ian were the only ones for Elvis!
LGS,
~~Dave would work, because as Josie said it needs to rhyme in songs:
Hey Babe, you are my fave,
When we strolled under Dave
But what rhymes with Monty?
I don't know... I say we call it Nelson. Don't know why but Nelson just seems to work. You'd have a Full Nelson, a Half Nelson etc.
Big Brother,
~~I like Nelson too, but you should know by now that we have to defer to your little sister, and she says "Bob."
I think a good name for the moon would be ASS. alot rhymes with it and you could have a half ass or full ass. Think about it.... going out at night and there is a half moon....you would be able to say..........There's a half ass if I ever saw one!!!
Also, there could be losts of songs written about it. "Late one night sitting in the grass, I realized I loved you staring at the ass.
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