Why is Earth's moon still named just "The Moon" (and our sun still named "The Sun")

[Daveman]

But the suns and moons are only suns and moons because we had the sun and the moon originally and then we realised there were things like that elsewhere.

Why bother renaming it, it doesn't need rebranding or anything just leave it be.

 

[Dwarfman]

Our name for the planet being "earth" isn't much better when you consider that they might just as well have called it planet Dirt. But I digress.

And the damn finest planet of dirt for 200 000 light years if you want my opinion!

Earth, Moon and Sun don't bother me in the slightest, and to be frank you are quite literally the first person I've met to raise a stink about it. Besides where's your sense of literary romance? 'Man in the Luna' just sounds obscene.

 

[wrightguy0]

there are millions of trillions of suns in the universe, and as someone pointed out with luna, it's not just any sun, it's THE sun, our sun

i'm sure that in the future it will be known as Sol on star charts of our vast interstellar civilization (or the Terran System)

the anglicized versions of names for terra, luna and sol are quite lackluster and will probably still be used for centuries in system at least, or interchangeably with the other names we've had for millennia

 

[DuelLadyS]

Becuase they were the first Sun & Moon. We changed the term when we found more than one, now it means the specific ones by earth or any similar body.

We did the same thing with Band-aids and Q-tips. Those are technically brand names, but no one calls them adhesive bandages and cotton swabs except the people who mimicked the product. It's just a thing people do.

 

[Daverson]

Well, firstly, the Sun's called "The Sun" because that's it's name. As in, it's a proper noun. Saying "A sun" the sort of thing idiots do. (The generic term is "a star", it'd like calling all planets "An earth")

As for "The Moon", this is a quirk of the English language (and some others, I think), the scientific term is "Sol" and "Luna", (much like how iron is "Ferrum" in science) hence why we have a Solar System (on a side note, Solar System only refers to our star system) and Lunar Landers (and why we call Iron-like things "Ferrous" and not "Irony")

 

[O maestre]

you've stated repeatedly that the Luna and Sol are not the official names.... but it is the popular and most widespread "names" for our star and local satellite so why don't we for the ease of things accept the misconceptions as the de facto names?

its seems to be the best solution and you can start sleeping again i don't want to come off as being offensive but you seem hell bent on not calling the sun and moon by their latin names.

on another note sometimes our local celestial bodies are used as measurement units, like feet and pounds.

and technically the earth doesn't have a name... i mean it is an earth planet, like Sol is a sun/solar star

 

[Davey Woo]

I dunno, why am I still called David when everyone around me has a different name?
Oh wait, it's because, it is the name I was given.

I have no problem with 'the moon' being called 'the moon' because that is its name.

 

[Bvenged]

sol and luna are generally the accepted "names" for those particular bodies. Granted, those are just the latin versions of moon and sun, but they suffice.

This.

The moon is Luna and the Sun is Sol. If we ever communicated with aliens, I doubt they'd find that confusing if we had a discussion about our solar system.

 

[Some_weirdGuy]

But there is. "The Sun" is the name of the star at the center of the Solar System. Using "sun" to refer to to the star or stars at the center of a different planetary system is incorrect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun

Actually, there IS only one sun in the universe and that is The Sun, or Sol as some people in this thread are calling it. There's only one sun, which is a star. Everything else isn't considered a 'sun,' but a star.

OUR star is the only sun.

World English Dictionary
sun (sʌn)

? n
1. the star at the centre of our solar system. It is a gaseous body having a highly compressed core, in which energy is generated by thermonuclear reactions (at about 15 million kelvins), surrounded by less dense radiative and convective zones serving to transport the energy to the surface (the photosphere ). The atmospheric layers (the chromosphere and corona ) are normally invisible except during a total eclipse. Mass and diameter: 333 000 and 109 times that of earth respectively; mean distance from earth: 149.6 million km (1 astronomical unit)Related: solar
2. any star around which a planetary system revolves
3. the sun as it appears at a particular time or place: the winter sun
4. the radiant energy, esp heat and light, received from the sun; sunshine
5. a person or thing considered as a source of radiant warmth, glory, etc
6. a pictorial representation of the sun, often depicted with a human face
7. poetic a year or a day
8. poetic a climate
9. archaic sunrise or sunset (esp in the phrase from sun to sun )
10. catch the sun to become slightly sunburnt
11. place in the sun a prominent or favourable position
12. nautical shoot the sun , take the sun to measure the altitude of the sun in order to determine latitude
13. touch of the sun slight sunstroke
14. under the sun , beneath the sun on earth; at all: nobody under the sun eats more than you do

I wish more people on this thread would do their homework.

That's a widely accepted yet informal use, in the same way people sometimes use specific brand-names for non-specific items, or mislabel certain animals/etc. based on the type we're more familiar with.

Our nearest star is called the Sun
(and you could further extend that to: our satellite is called the Moon.)

Therefore, when trying to explain to the uninitiated, we liken other objects to that which most are familiar with and explain it based on these similarities.
((People can understand our Sun as this big firey ball, but stars are those little dots, well hey we need to explain that those little stars are also big firey balls too, so if i just call them 'suns' people will understand what we're getting at and make the right connections. No need to bog it down in technicalities))

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Incorrect.

Luna and Sol are the proper names of those objects.

Okay, could somebody please tell me where everybody keeps getting this idea that "Sol" and "Luna" are the official names of these things? I've looked it up in several places and every source is telling me the same thing.

http://earthsky.org/space/what-is-the-suns-name

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=155

http://www.universetoday.com/18701/name-of-the-sun/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun

http://www.accessscience.com/studycenter.aspx?main=3&questionID=701

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=289

(btw. Did you know that all the moons of Uranus isn't named after anything in Greek mythology, but names of Characters in the plays of Shakespeare and Alexander Pope?).

Actually I did, Titania, Oberon, and Puck are all characters from A Mid Summer Night's Dream which I had to read in high school. Though I never made the connection that Miranda was from The Tempest though. And I'm less familiar with the names of Uranus' other moons.

"Sol, the Latin name for the Sun
Typically used in science fiction and other contexts where there is a need to distinguish our particular star or the solar system from "a sun" or "a solar system"."

Same story for The Moon and Luna

As of this moment in time, we don't need to make the distinction you've been so incredibly pedantic over. Most likely, when we finally inhabit other systems and planets where the need for proper distinctions arrises, we will start using these terms or some other such term, but it is not necessary now or for the foreseeable future.

When world class astronomers call the moon, the fucking moon, then maybe you should just accept it. Your not some sort of academic revolutionary. Consider that Sci-Fi authors have already addressed your concerns, why not just accept that in the context of our currently limited reach, that the basic terms we do use are sufficient for our purposes.

 

[Olas]

Because it's the only one of each that really effects us.

If it really pisses you off, then start calling them Sol and Luna, then consider seeing a psychiatrist.

I don't get it, why should he see a psychiatrist? I can call the sun Omellete of Sector 5/ Zyrithian if I want to. Does that mean I should immediately be subjected to mind homogenizing medication?

Loss of perspective, anger issues, insistent pettiness. He may want to get that looked at.

Trust me Lacktheknack, there isn't a psychiatrist in the world that could fix all the problems I've got, and I've seen several.

Though I think you're being a little overzealous, people on this site make fusses about all kinds of stupid pointless stuff. Not long ago I replied to a person who wrote a rant about the stupidity of 12:01pm being a minute after midday instead of midnight, in a thread asking why some calenders start with Sunday instead of Monday.

So I didn't think a thread asking why our moon is named "The Moon" would be all that unfathomable

Anyway, I'm done with this thread. Goodbye everyone, it's been fun.

 

[Spassfact]

Snip

See the real problem isn't that we named our planet's single natural satellite the "moon" or our system's primary the "sun" (see what I did there?). No, the real problem is that we started using those names, the unique names our ancestors gave those objects, to refer to other stars and satellites...

THAT is the dumb part, and it happened much more recently than what you are asking about

Okay, I'll accept that.

The only problem I see there is that, and correct me if I'm wrong about this, but I believe we still referred to them as the sun, and the moon back then. If so, the "the" seems to imply that that was already just a generic label and not an actual name.
Just like how we don't have a name for the universe right now. It's just "the universe". Universe isn't it's name per se, it's what it is. There can be other "universes".
So if sun and moon were just labels and not actual names then it does seem natural to call all similar objects suns and moons as well.

In which case it's the original sun and moon that should stop being lazy and get real names of their own.

But if we did start calling all natural satellites "Goomaluchas" and all stars with planets "Baginvorches" I'd be happy with that as well.

I can see where you are coming from with this argument, or at least I think I can. If I'm wrong then my apologies but what I think you're saying is that since there's a 'the' before the words they can't be considered actual names like Paul or something, which can't have a 'the' appearing before them. But what about names like 'the milky way'. I'm pretty sure you'd agree that that is the name of our galaxy and the 'the' is required in this case. You can't say 'Milky way galaxy is our home' you have to say 'The milky way galaxy is our home'. Using your argument, this fact would mean that there could be other 'milky way galaxies', which is a unique name for our galaxy.

There are also names that go both ways such as 'Earth'. 'Earth is our home' is a good sentence but so is 'the earth is our home.'Unless you want to claim that our perspective on what 'Earth' actually is is different in these two sentences then the 'the' can't contribute to any unnaminess, (yes that is a word now), of the word.

 

[Salad Is Murder]

I propose we rename them something more respectable.

The Sun --> Celestia
The Moon --> Luna



Let's also rename space in general as discord.

It's like, jeez, I want to start punching you, but I don't know if I'd ever stop and I've got other things to do with my life.

Well, that escalated quickly

Yeah, it's almost as if no one has any sense of humor and couldn't possibly see this as anything other than a joke.

I also noticed that I got a warning for that post, so good job keeping everyone safe; all ya'll pat yourselves on the back for fighting the good fight.

 

[Radoh]

Edit: And for the record, no, their names aren't "Sol" and "Luna". That's just in Star Trek and Mass Effect and probably a few other Sci-fi universes, not RL.

They ARE. Those were the original Latin names they were given "Sol" and "Luna" and are currently the most accepted proper names in the world of science and Astronomy.

Look, I'm sorry but are speaking Latin right now? Maybe you think that this is like with species names where the Latin based name is the scientific one. It's not. Sol is no more it's officially recognized name than the words Soleil, Sonne, or Helios.

And when you say Fiance are you speaking French?
What about when you say Spaghetti, are you speaking Italian?
Have you ever used the word Ergo? What about Impromptu? Quid Pro Quo?
How about any of the words from http://wordinfo.info/unit/3277 ?
You act like we need to use only English words when speaking in English, but the Language inherently draws from other places. We're not going to make up our own words for everything, so before you start trying to find an English name for Sol and Luna, you should first start finding names for every single non-English speaking country, since those all come from their own native tongues.

 

[AlexWinter]

We don't need to rename our moon we just need to give names to all the others.

The sun is called the sun.

(I'm not capitalising these nouns because I'm not pedantic.)

 

[Dimitriov]

Snip

See the real problem isn't that we named our planet's single natural satellite the "moon" or our system's primary the "sun" (see what I did there?). No, the real problem is that we started using those names, the unique names our ancestors gave those objects, to refer to other stars and satellites...

THAT is the dumb part, and it happened much more recently than what you are asking about

Okay, I'll accept that.

The only problem I see there is that, and correct me if I'm wrong about this, but I believe we still referred to them as the sun, and the moon back then. If so, the "the" seems to imply that that was already just a generic label and not an actual name.
Just like how we don't have a name for the universe right now. It's just "the universe". Universe isn't it's name per se, it's what it is. There can be other "universes".
So if sun and moon were just labels and not actual names then it does seem natural to call all similar objects suns and moons as well.

In which case it's the original sun and moon that should stop being lazy and get real names of their own.

But if we did start calling all natural satellites "Goomaluchas" and all stars with planets "Baginvorches" I'd be happy with that as well.

You are basically correct, but with the caveat that the way Modern English uses definite articles is also relatively recent.

I am not certain when English articles developed their current functions, but certainly in old English they are used more to indicate grammatical gender and the grammatical function of the word they are attached to within a sentence (whether a noun is the subject or object, or whether it is possessing something etc.).

 

[DoomyMcDoom]

Because they're OURS, we don't have more than one moon, and the sun is the only star we orbit, they should be special, they should be stably named, and those names make sense, we've been calling them that for a loooooong time, why bother changing.

If it really bothers you, you can always just call the sun "Mr. Pickleface" and the moon "The Rumble Sphere" if you so choose, you might just get some strange looks from other people.

 

[The White Hunter]

Our other moons have far less exciting names that I can't recall right now. but I think they're just two letters then numbers kinda deals.

Anyway; because that's just how it is. Call them Dave and Florence if you want but that wonm't stop anyone else calling them Sun and Moon.

 

[Zenn3k]

Most "suns" don't have names, only very special ones do. I don't see a reason why it needs a proper name.

However, the Moon's name IS in fact, Luna. Its rarely called this, but thats its name. Its often referred to as "The Moon" because its the Moon of Earth, our planet.

You know also that Earth is the only planet in our solar system not named after a god right? Why doesn't THAT bother you?