A simple question:

Why Uranus's satellite named after Shakespeare or Pope's character but not the legendary character? I want to know the initial reason lies behind.

Thanks.

What are you asking exactly? :-?

All (except 2, to my knowledge) of Uranus' moons are named after characters from Shakespearian plays...what's this legendary stuff?

As for the reason behind why astronomical objects are named after certain things, this thread might offer some insight.

with regards

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Apparently it was William Lassell who suggested this nomenclature to Sir John Herschel.

Lassell Article

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Hmmm....that's pretty interesting. Any idea why a couple of the moons didn't follow this nomenclature?

with regards

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There's been a shift from Lassell and Herschel's original plan to use the names of fairies and sprites, which they drew from the writings of Shakespeare and Pope. The first four satellites discovered are Oberon and Titania (fairy king and queen in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream) and Ariel and Umbriel (a sylph and a gnome from Pope's Rape of the Lock). But Ariel is also the name of a sprite in Shakespeare's The Tempest, and by the time a fifth satellite was discovered in 1948, it seems that people had forgotten the "fairy" plan, and thought the naming theme was to be derived from Shakespeare's characters (since three of the four existing satellites had immediately recognisable Shakespearean names). So we ended up with a fifth satellite called Miranda, after the (human) heroine of The Tempest. Thereafter, the Shakespearean theme has been followed systematically for satellite names, but the fairy theme has been reintroduced for the surface features of Ariel and Umbriel.

Grant Hutchison

I wish they would have cut his dad a little more slack. Uranus, indeed. :-? Although I doth not mean discontent tward Shakespeare...."Alas, poor [Georgium Sidus], I knew him well, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy." :wink:

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"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

I thought it was because they were running out of greek/roman gods to name things after? Hence the reason they called one of the new moons around saturn after an Inuit deity.

I think running out of greek/roman names also played a role - many of the recently discovered moons of Saturn and Jupiter are named after Gaelic and Inuit deities.

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Actually, I think Lassell might have felt that since Uranus was discovered by an English subject (I think German-born William Herschel was a naturalized "English" subject when he discovered it), its retinue of satellites should have names drawn from English fairy-lore (Tolkien hadn't invented an English mythology yet ).

But that's just my guess.

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I think you meant Gallic. 8)

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Titania and Oberon were discovered in 1787; Ariel and Umbriel in 1851 - there were still lots of names from classical mythology available at that time, so I doubt if a lack of classical names was a driving force for the original decision. I'd guess that Lassell and Herschel's original intention was to use mythological names, but to draw them from English mythology since Uranus was an English discovery. So they pulled fairies and sprites from the works of the English authors Shakespeare and Pope.

The Jovian satellites are still being named from (increasingly obscure!) Greek mythology. There's a system in which directly orbiting satellites have names ending in "a" and retrogrades with an "e", with some unusual objects being assigned an "o".
Outer Saturnians are being drawn from Inuit, Norse and Celtic (=Gallic) mythology. In theory, the names of giants are used, to fit with the names of Titans used for the major satellites, but the "giant" connection is pretty shakey in many instances. Again, there's an attempt at a system, with names being assigned according to orbital families - Inuit for the 40-degree family, Celtic for the 30-degree family, and Norse for the Phoebe group.

Grant Hutchison

PS: Oops. Eroica got in a post before me.

Not as bad as the naming of "Pluto."

The tradition on the other planets was to use the name from Roman mythology, e.g. Mercury-Venus-Mars-Jupiter-Saturn instead of Hermes-Aphrodite-Ares-Zeus-Chronos. This tradition continued when new planets began to be discovered with the aid of telescopes -- e.g. Neptune was called Neptune rather than Poseidon. With Uranus, there was no Roman equivalent -- Unraus existed only in the Greek version of classical mythology.

But with Pluto, they screwed it up. "Pluto" is the Greek god of the underworld, also called Hades. The Roman name for the same god is "Dis." At least with Uranus, they had the excuse that there was no Roman version of the name, but with Pluto, they had no such excuse.

I demand a recount.

There seems to be a long-standing tradition of "Latinizing" Greek names when translating from the original syntax. For example, Hercules = Herakles, Ithaca = Ithaka (or Ithaki), Circe = Kirke, etc. Just alternative spellings of the same name, usually with c substituted for k and u substiuted for o in the Greek.

I have seen an alternative spelling of Uranus, which is Ouranos. Same name, sounds slightly more Greek, and rolls off the tongue easier.

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Well they should have named them after Gaelic ones instead! [-( :wink:

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Considering that Kenneth Edgeworth was Irish, I think they should name KBOs after Irish mythological figures.

Gauls, Inuits, Native Americans - what do we Irish have to do to get something named after us?

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The original name for Uranus, as per Willilam Herschel who discovered it, was Georgium Sidus. It is rumored the Roman god for jest is Georgii. [Albeit, this is very recent rumor and subject to significant error. :wink: ]

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

Ah ha! Another rationalization, errr....justification, for SPACC. If we can determine a planet to be green, a Gaelic god is a must.

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Lighten up! This is a stellar board! Author: duh.

"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

We´ll never run out of gods to name celestial bodies after. There are still American (north and south) and African deities waiting in line. Not to mention the Indian, Southern Asian...There is no need to resort to literature yet.

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