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So the ancient Greek name for the primordial god of the sky was Ouranos. His Roman equivalent was Caelus. So then where does the name Uranus come from?

Wikipedia:

Uranus is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky Uranus (Ancient Greek: Οὐρανός) [...] which in Latin became "Ūranus".
~"Uranus". Oxford English Dictionary (2 ed.). 1989.

Also http://latinlexicon.org/definition.php?p1=2061716

I do have to point out though, that Uranus is the Greek name, not Roman. All the others are named after Roman gods (Mars instead of Ares, Jupiter instead of Zeus, Pluto instead of Hades, etc,.) while Uranus is named after a Greek god.

I understand that Uranus is a name for the Greek god of the sky. However, it is my understanding that Ouranos is a more accurate translation of the ancient Greek for Uranus. So I'm wondering where the usage of Uranus comes from. It's confusing, because the Romans had Caelus, so Uranus wouldn't be the Roman version, as MetaCthulhu pointed out.

Pluto is actually Greek too, his Roman equivalent being Dis Pater.
(From wikipedia).

One could also say that somebody probably pulled that name out of their ass.

Anonymous98223 wrote:I understand that Uranus is a name for the Greek god of the sky. However, it is my understanding that Ouranos is a more accurate translation of the ancient Greek for Uranus. So I'm wondering where the usage of Uranus comes from. It's confusing, because the Romans had Caelus, so Uranus wouldn't be the Roman version, as MetaCthulhu pointed out.

Would it not be that Uranus is just the Latinized version of his name? Like, they didn't actually adopt him as a god, but they still had a name for him?

Dirty Spaceman wrote:

Anonymous98223 wrote:I understand that Uranus is a name for the Greek god of the sky. However, it is my understanding that Ouranos is a more accurate translation of the ancient Greek for Uranus. So I'm wondering where the usage of Uranus comes from. It's confusing, because the Romans had Caelus, so Uranus wouldn't be the Roman version, as MetaCthulhu pointed out.

Would it not be that Uranus is just the Latinized version of his name? Like, they didn't actually adopt him as a god, but they still had a name for him?

Maybe that's right, but it just seems weird. Caelus is already the Roman substitute of Ouranos, and is practically identical, so why would the Romans also recognize a Latin name for the original Greek. Why wouldn't they just pick one name and stick with it?

Here's an answer from Yahoo Answers.

The Romans usually used the name Uranus for the Greek Ouranos. Similarly they called Apollon Apollo, and the god of the underworld Pluto after the Greek Plouton (a common title of Hades), and Bacchus after Bakkhos (a Greek title of Dionysus).

There was no Roman equivalent of Uranus. Caelus is the literal translation, "sky" in Latin, but was rarely used for the figure of myth. Caelus was never a true Roman god, just a translation used by Roman prose writers like Cicero and Hyginus. The Roman poets prefer Uranus.

Link to that page:

As someone who is Greek, I can tell you that the explanation is none too exciting. The Greek and Roman alphabets are different; you can't just transcribe characters to get a word. To add to that, Greek as a language works very differently to common Indo-European grammar conventions. The answer is, that it could have just as easily ended up being spelled Ouranous. Translations of universal words like these often follow a pattern of both phonetically replicating and localizing a word. Many languages other than English do not produce a U sound when connecting O and U. I can't tell you the real reason, but I can tell you that many Greek words used in science are translated very differently from what they appear in Greek.

Take for instance the word βάθος, which means "depth". It is used in the scientific term batophobia, the fear of depth. There is no Roman letter for Theta, and so we use TH. Yet that word is transcribed as Batos even though Bathos would be more true to the original.

I hope that helps explain.

Team Georgium Sidus reporting in.

legoless wrote:Team Georgium Sidus reporting in.

Since I looked up the history of the planet's name after reading this thread, I actually get this joke.

If anything, I'm very grateful for the spelling and pronunciation because it's the easiest bad pun in the book.

Although now they try and make people pronounce it 'Yurann-uss', instead of the original, humour inducing pronunciation.

I think emphasis on the U is actually the officially preferred pronunciation now. It does sound rather official.

I prefer the Greek names over the Roman ones. I wish they all were the Greek counterparts....
Also, thanks Mars, I didn't know that.