Sorry if this has been talked to death, but I hope to get some traction on this topic.

What do you consider the most important individual bodies of the solar system?
And, if you were to rename the major bodies of the solar system, what names might you give?

I must say, I like consistency, and this abandonment of the Latin naming convention is kind of sickening. Latin is a major basis of the English language as well as the Romance languages. It has a natural significance to us. If we should use other language forms, it would seem we wouldn't be using island names that are representative of a small group of now-vanished people far out at sea. Not that they are bad, but they may be too far off from our current experience and given names. I realize many names may be taken already. Perhaps they should have been reserved in the first place for greater astronomical entities. I think we should either consider them open for reappropriation, or use names that represent larger portions of the world and history.

I'd really love to hear any ideas someone might have on this! I really don't know anything about the dwarf planet candidates, though, and can't tell which might be really good candidates.

Here is what I would do..

Keep the usual identifications..
Sol (Apollo)
Mercury
Venus
Terra (Gaia)
Luna (Diana)
Mars
Vesta
Ceres (I don't understand why an asteroid would represent agriculture, unless you consider the asteroid "field")
Pallas
Hygiea
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Pluto

Old: Haumea
New: Cybele
Cybele is a mother goddess, like Haumea, current name of this egg-shaped dwarf planet. Two moons remind of her two chariot lions.

Old: Makemake
New: Minerva
Minerva is owl-like, which reminds of the color of this bright dwarf planet. Makemake was a bird-man.

...?
Eris
...?

I'm not sure what you mean by "reserving" names. What do you mean when you say that many names are "taken"? Are there other astronomical objects that are given those names?

__________________
As above, so below

Is this a solution in search of a problem?

Asteroids 63 Cybele and 93 Minerva have "taken" the names the OP proposes to use for Haumea and Makemake. It's now IAU policy to avoid duplicate names. The existence of asteroid 3908 Nyx is what drove the mutated spelling of Pluto's moon Nix, for instance.

I'd be sorry to see us restricted to the mythology of two dead European cultures. There are many more cultures and mythologies than Roman and Greek, and many more language groups than Romance. Bring 'em on, I say.

Grant Hutchison

It's only a matter of time before we start seeing stars and planets being named "Spock" and "Kirk".

__________________
"Sir I have a plan. Mein Führer, I can walk!"

There are all sorts of mythologies that can be drawn upon for planet names;
for instance
http://eg.orionsarm.com/im_store/daffy2.jpg
.
.

__________________
New Orion's Arm Site . The Starlark . Against a Diamond Sky (OA Novella Collection) . OA Flickr set

I guess what most bothers me is

1) We are using these names in an English setting (for us), and have so far used the same language. It seems odd and inconsistent to randomly change the names now. For instance, "ab" would mean "out from a source" in Latin, related to "father" in Semitic tongues, and interestingly "abhi" is "into, higher" in Sanskrit. It seems it would make sense to use other languages when a fundamental concept is best expressed by them.

2) Very little is known about Rongorongo, although it is interesting, so other connected names cannot be given in a way that might have even made sense to the Rapa Nui.

3) These island cultures did little to advance astronomical science, not that this is the only measure of poetical imagination. Although, there were not a lot of them, so they may have made very interesting use of their resources, and may have done what they could. So in this sense their language may have some unique and interesting element to it.

But of course speakers of other languages have their own names for the planets that are observable with the naked eye. Romance speakers use their own versions of the Latin and Greek names. In a global age, isn't it better to have names that are standard across languages and sampled from many languages?

Rongorongo is something of a red herring, since it's an undeciphered system of petroglyphs. Just talk to some Rapa Nui people, and they'll tell you their mythology. So connected names are available, if required. The reference to Easter Island links to the Easter discovery date for Makemake.

The were extraordinarily adept star-navigators, however, if you want to search for a justification in astronomical science.

Grant Hutchison

Is this a valid sampling?

If I were to randomly talk to a few speakers of Romance languages today, should I trust their account of the stories of the ancients? Oral tradition has its place, but is very prone to distortion in a small sampling, especially in a culture that has dramatically changed. If the accounts are so clear, it would seem that the petroglyphs might be decipherable.

An unfixed holiday in the Christian calendar that has extremely little reference to the ancient Rapa Nui people - a date that is not even agreed upon between churches, even if one were to assume one date is correct. Why the planet was originally called Easter Bunny just due to the discovery date I have no idea; at least Haumea looks egg-shaped.

Very true (at least the ones who lived). There are other excellent sea-faring peoples, so then I have to ask the sampling question again. And did the world learn much from them? I don't know.

No single example is a valid sampling. Fortunately the naming process applies to thousands of bodies.

So you have something against the actual spoken traditions of present-day Rapa Nui people? What makes you reject their traditions in favour of ancient inaccessible ones? By that reasoning, we must reject Latin and Greek tradition, since it is merely a shadow of the unknown proto-Indo-European mythos, which in turn reflected even earlier traditions.

It's a pun. It doesn't need to connect to the ancient Rapa Nui people. I'm no great fan of Mike Brown's rather laboured word-play myself, but discoverers are permitted to make linkages that we don't necessarily like.

And again I have to respond that you have selected a single data point from a large sampling process. By the same reasoning, one wonders how we justify the name of the planet Venus. Were there not also male gods? Were there not gods with other preoccupations apart from love? It's a ridiculously unrepresentative name; I reject it utterly.

Grant Hutchison

I'm not speaking of thousands. My point is that the major bodies of the solar system should include figures that have had a major influence on world tradition, and attempt to maintain a sense of order and consistency. I did make a mistake, meaning to list Eris as "Discordia".

We cannot easily see back that far, although some have tried and done a pretty respectable job of constructing a unified world tradition (Santillana/Dechend and many others). It is not yet entirely consistent and ordered. The ideas must grow out naturally. I do not think that the current naming will be the best possible, but it is at least a stepping stone to a better one.

It's not really a pun; both were discovered on the declared day of Easter. Was there some significance as spring is supposedly a time of death of the old and birth of the new? In this case Eris was the new-comer.

And we are permitted to ignore them. Else Uranus is "Georgium Sidus"; Ceres is "Ceres Ferdinandea".

Half the human population approximately is female. Venus comes from Latin meaning "to come" and is related to many words still used every day by us. It represents a lot: prettiness, self-absorption, romantic love, sex. It does not represent all women, so there should be more females in the solar system and are, such as Ceres, Vesta, Hygiea, Eris. Where is a big Juno? A big Cybele? A big Minerva?

This is your opinion, rather than a fundamental principle. Yes?

So you propose a continuous process of renaming?

Indeed. So the word Easter has multiple associations when spoken with reference to Makemake. A pun, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is a word used so as to "suggest two or more meanings or different associations". It may not be as laboured and excruciating as the puns in childish jokes, but it's a pun nevertheless.

Of course. There's something of a cottage industry in ignoring the IAU these days. But I think your first aim must be to convince us that we should ignore them.

And the other half is male. Venus does a terrible job of representing them. She does an even poorer job of representing the sex distribution of the gods. We can find a reason to reject any name we dislike, if we use your "sampling" argument.

More to do with attractiveness and love in Latin, I think. But this is a parochial argument based on the happenstance that you speak an Indo-European language. Why should speakers from other language groups be impressed?

Grant Hutchison

Any names are ok to me.

I only disagree with how they're classified. If I did it: (a) sun (b) planets: 8
(c) minor solar system objects: (i) Oort cloud objects (ii) Kuiper belt objects (includes Pluto, Eris) (iii) asteroids (iv) comets (v) meteroids

I don't think so. Mnemonics suggests certain order already inherent in language: we use base words and suffixes. Phonology, and even the idea of any kind of unified human mythos, suggests a sort of fundamental principle. For instance, "na" is an expression of negation in many independent languages. The world offers much of the same repertory of sound across the globe: the sound of birds, chopping wood, water running.

Sure; languages, belief systems, educational curricula, cultural identifications undergo constant change. Hopefully for the goal of improving, or at least adding interest.

Okay.

The above words are in large part aiming at that.

I think you are supporting my specific argument there. If you were to throw a dart randomly at the map of excellent sea-faring people, you'd be unlikely to hit a Rapa Nui person symbol. If you were to throw a dart at a sex category representation, you'd be just as likely to hit a male or a female. Now the question becomes, Does the Rapa Nui godhead best fill an important place in the planetary pantheon sequence?

Certain other groups should most definitely also be represented where significant. One can however show that Latin is to a certain extent consistent and ordered. It has been useful for this for a long time, and has been used by the West as a common language, even to the exclusion of other excellent languages. I realize this sounds like an appeal to tradition, but it is not baseless. [addition:] For a global tradition, rename all the major bodies. (Certain other countries already do this.) I am only terribly interested in the parochial, for I only really understand the Western tradition.

So how does this support your idea that "the major bodies of the solar system should include figures that have had a major influence on world tradition, and attempt to maintain a sense of order and consistency"?

The potential for confusion seems to me to outweigh the possibility of interest, in this instance.

I understand. We just seemed to be jumping to "ignore" before we'd passed "convince".

So the languages and mythology of minorities should be neglected, as being of no consequence in the grand scheme? Setting aside the cultural bankruptcy of that argument, I need only point out that if I throw a dart at a map of religious practices, I will not strike a Venus-worshipper very frequently.

You're begging the question. "(Dwarf) planetary names must fill an important place in the planetary pantheon sequence because that's how we choose planetary names." You've yet to demonstrate that this rule is sensible or useful.

It seems baseless to me, given that we're talking about proper names, not language structure or the usefulness of a lingua franca.

Grant Hutchison

There is a natural order to language and meaning for humans. Sure, I could decide tomorrow that "Screw off" means "Hi, how are you?" But I won't ever really think that. Additionally, there are universal sounds that connote certain concepts across the globe. Some sounds are long, some short, and involve definite mechanisms for production. These become conceptual. The conceptal schema becomes embedded as our understanding of the universe. We can then take it and apply it ad hoc where it fits. All these associations reinforce it, and it allows us to increase knowledge and understanding. In a Socratic way, it also may reveal characteristic clues for gaining new knowledge where it might otherwise be missed.

Can't really argue with an opinion. I thought it would be interesting to hear some alternative ideas, even if just to contemplate them in my own way - not out to change the solar system, just to construct an alternative minority view.

Yes, but the goal of the original post was not really so much to gather argument. I was trying to find inspiration. I was hoping some imaginative posts might offer something striking and interesting to me. But criticism can be a form of inspiration. And I'll take what I can get, although without as much interest. What would be interesting is if someone offered insight into the stories and meanings of representations of Makemake, Haumea, etc.

Then you are in favor of renaming the planets? Let's assume some Christians would be in favor also, but there is just not much excitement in naming them "Solomon", "Jonas", etc. Or maybe there is for some. In fact, you will meet many people who unintentionally "venerate" Venus, from which the word comes. Spirits connect the universe from the very small to the very large. Expressing ourselves through them pays homage to the gods.

I try to explain this above in the traditional Socratic way. (There is probably an Eastern philosopher under-represented in the Western world that I could have cited, but, being stuck in the provinces of ignorance, I have not afforded to. I think a certain nonbeliever said something similar to Euthyphro.)

Why is a supposedly mythological proper name different? Gods can bind lands together or rend them apart. "Gaud" (God) can mean "Joy". "Santa Claus" can mean "Divine Gate". These may be bad translations, but since when did all humans think infallibly?

I just typed that paragraph into google language, chose english --> english, and it came back with "All your base belong to us. And what is the name of this little planet with a few small moons?"

Unfortunately, at the moment the media apparently think the most important individual bodies of the solar system are Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett.

__________________
‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

Perhaps you shouldn't have launched with a phrase like "this abandonment of the Latin naming convention is kind of sickening", then. "Abandonment" and "sickening" are emotive words, pushing a particular view. Folks tend to push back under these circumstances, if so inclined.

Not at all. I was illustrating how your argument from "sampling" can be used to justify discarding any name at all.

And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Grant Hutchison

Yes, I definitely agree here. I was kind of "attracted" to this thread by that initial post. And I must say, however, that the discussion has been interesting. I basically agree with Grant (I think...) that if we are going to have the IAU make decisions on naming bodies, it should do so in a way that incorporates the sort of plurarity of human cultures. It shouldn't be a culturally biased choice.

Just as an aside, dwnielsen has repeatedly brought up the idea of sound symbolism, which is something that I am very interested in. I'm not sure how it relates to the naming of planets, however. The sound of a bell is similar in many languages because, well, bells sound a certain way. Many languages have a word for "cut" that has the /k/ sound, which is natural because cutting actually seems to sound that way to the human ear. But I can't imagine how Jupiter or Saturn might sound. They're just lights in the sky.

__________________
As above, so below

"Abandonment" is a little emotive, but not particularly so. The major bodies of the solar system were being named under the convention of Latin god names, as already given by the first 14 names in the given list (except for Hygiea, who was known as Sirona, but not as well known), starting with the Sun and moving outward. The new ones are named for island gods and a Greek god. It is a pretty simple picture that describes working on one task, then leaving it and changing convention.

"Sickening" I kind of regretted using. I anticipated the question, Why would this project matter? I was trying to describe the sentiment in few words. I have tried to elaborate on this. The criticism came, but not what I was requesting (except from Thoth II).

I was being tongue-in-cheek, though usually try to be more sincere. I was just trying to show that I don't agree, so I would accept your argument as stated.

Psychodynamics is not practically very useful because you just can't tell what motives are behind things, but that doesn't mean all analytical systems regarding interpretation are discredited. People make analyses of linguistic and representational data. I was trying to give a convincing sort of sketch of how these associations could be formed.

Phonosemantics takes this a little farther, noting word clusters with common sounds and meanings, unrelated to simple onomatopoeia. One can exploit this with invented words, as in the famous "bouba/kiki" experiment. Subjects exposed to these words for the first time, and asked to associate them with objects, would reproducibly identify the rounded, lumpy object as the "bouba", and the spiky, sharp one as the "kiki". This happens with subjects who speak languages from many different language groups. Does it go back to the sounds of lumpy and sharp objects interacting with the environment? Maybe. But there are other examples that are purely visual, like the "gl-" group that associates with light sources (gleam, glitter, glister, glisten, glow, glint, in English).

However, to me the proposed application to astronomical bodies has more than a whiff of alchemical/magickal symbol-making to it: a stretching after relationships that aren't really there; mistaking puns for deep meanings.
My reference to Freud was supposed to work at that level: it's a negative comment on symbol-peddling, written by a symbol-peddler, and it also provides a symbolic reference to the shape of the dwarf planet Haumea. Move over, Robert Anton Wilson!

Grant Hutchison

Have you ever felt abandoned? Have you ever abandoned anyone or anything? Were these emotionally neutral experiences?

Grant Hutchison

Well, Michael Jackson with Moonwalker did give a certain idea of what moonlife is like. But he certainly seems like a son of Mercury: fast and expressive, if superficial. (I just heard someone say that Jackson died over $500 million in debt. How does anyone spend that much in one lifetime?)

Jupiter's identifying sound would probably be authoritarian or regal, since it's big and a median planet (moving light in the sky). "J" was like "I", as in "Yahweh"; "John", "Joan", "Jane", the "Jon" in "Jonathan", etc derive from this. "James" and "Jacob" derive from "supplanter". Saturn, his father, moves nearby.

If you are actually wondering what sound might be associated with the planets, I am very interested in this, but not precisely in the Pythagorean sense per se. The solar system is full of periods. No one denies that the tidal day, the lunar month, and the solar day have an extreme influence on people. Well, those are relative periods, which, if moved into the range of human hearing, might have some natural mental resonance. I have played around with this a little, but have not come to any great clarity on how to do it. Kepler had his own sounds of the spheres, which I also find interesting in a different way.

Assuming humans ever make it that far, Earth might become a light in the sky, then invisible.

Sometimes not very emotional.

Then you are fortunate.
The question was rhetorical, however. Readers will come to their own conclusions about the emotional content of the word "abandon".

Grant Hutchison

I agree that there is no necessity to maintain the tradition of naming planets after deities. Perhaps we should use any resonant word from a tongue on the verge of extinction (an equivalent of "ghostly", "brothers", "jewel", "dancer" etc.) so that at least one word from that language is immortalized.

__________________
Yonder is Dubhe seen on Earth tonight as it was in the days of Grover Cleveland's presidency whereas this way is Deneb seen as it was in the lifetime of Muhammed . If one somehow travelled to Deneb at very close to c then whenever you looked back you'd measure Earth as closer to you than the distance you would simultaneously measure between Earth and Dubhe.

I like that idea. It would capture a spiritual essence. What would the most effective form of this essence be? I might think it would be one that can associate with many important other spiritual essences. Since humans can express themselves in many visceral ways we understand - cutting, negating, etc - it might be anthropomorphic. But then, humans cannot without abandoning their native abilities for machinery physically swim like dolphins, or cut like woodpeckers, or dance like a mimic octopus. So maybe higher animals are the best candidates. Or maybe abstract concepts (as opposed to animals) are clearest and most complete. Then there are the nonliving physical forms - tools - a connection between the living world and the concept. Maybe the forms should balance some or all of these. Completeness, unification, and immediate understanding all seem important in giving meaning.

But when does naming an object for a concept or a set of living creatures demean the concept or creatures? Some people would be honored to have a disease or a bacteria named for them, some wouldn't. Would the feelings of those people matter? [addition:] Do concepts matter, or not matter, in a similar way to the feelings of persons?

Maybe we should just take an idea from fiction. In Stargate: SG-1 the Ancients use a series of symbols to identify coordinates for a planet. In one of the later episodes, we learn that the symbols have a phoneme and the destination has a name that can be pronounced with the phonemes.

So, maybe we can take the idea above, use phonemes attached to numbers or metrics used to identify orbital elements and use that to produce a phonetically pronouncable name. What would we call such a system, phonoelemetrics?

__________________
"What you think you thought you saw you did not see." Agent J, MiB - Manhatten Bureau