List of Planet Names & Their Evolution in Time
Our current astrological list of planet names came first from Babylonia. Appropriately, Babylonians named these celestial beauties after their gods. They are:
- Sun = Shamash
- Mercury = Nabu
- Venus = Ishtar
- Mars = Nergal
- Jupiter = Marduk
- Saturn = Ninurta
- Moon = Sin
(Uranus, Neptune & Pluto were not quite visible to the Babylonian star-gazing methods. Also, although the sun and moon are luminaries, they are considered influencial, and are classified as planets in the astrological mind-set).
Babylonian astrology became popular to the ancient Greeks who embraced the Babylonian body of work on the subject and adopted the framework as their own. So much so, they renamed the Babylonian god planets to their own nomenclature:
- Shamash = Helios
- Nabu = Hermes
- Ishtar = Aphrodite
- Nergal = Ares
- Marduk = Zeus
- Ninurta = Kronos
- Sin = Selenê
The Romans later re-established the planet names in Latin, these are what we know and recognize today.
Other pages of interest:
Good Things Come in Seven’s (blog)
Symbolism of the Days of the Week (blog)
