The planet Mars inherited its name from Ares, who was the powerful god of war in the Greek worldview. Later the Romans took up the ideology of Ancient Greece and changed the names of the deities, this is precisely where the name of Mars arises. The other planets also inherited their names from the pantheon of Roman gods. But of the eight named after ancient deities, only one is the exception to the rule, the same one where you and I reside. Why is it like this? That is, who gave our planet its name?
Proto-Germanic, the closest root
Apparently the origin of the name of the planet that houses us is not entirely clear. To understand how this name was developed, you must first understand the etymology of the word itself. The word ‘earth’ comes from an ancient language, having its roots in the Old English term ‘eorþe’. Just like the current word ‘eorþe’, it was used to designate soil, dirt, dry land or the territory of a country.
This is the closest root we know of the word ‘earth’, although it is certainly not the beginning here. Old English was used until 1150 AD. C., and then evolved into the English that we know today and that is used to this day. However, it developed from a major scholarly language called Proto-Germanic. This is why both current English and German belong to the same language family.
In that sense, ‘eorþe’ was born from Proto-Germanic which later evolved into German and which now has a specific term to name the planet. This is why linguists firmly believe that the modern German word ‘Erde’ is intrinsically related to ‘eorþe’.
It is not the only ancient word that seems to be related to the current name of the . It has its close relatives in other languages such as ‘ertha’ from Old Saxon, ‘erthe’ from Old Frisian and Dutch ‘aarde’. It is believed that all of them come from Proto-Germanic, although there is no evidence of this, since the language was not always recorded on paper, but evolved from voice to voice transmission.
From generic term to proper name
Despite the efforts of linguists to discover when any of these terms stopped being used to designate the planet itself, beyond the earth or ground underfoot, it is not known exactly who was the first to do so. It is unknown at what point in history the word that designates the ground we walk on became the name of the planet.
Apparently there is no person who was responsible for giving our planet his name. Instead, it was history itself and people’s habit of referring to their home planet as ‘earth’, which later caused it to begin to be capitalized to refer to a whole beyond the ground. This is how a generic term became a proper name. That is, all the other planets, including Pluto, which is now no longer considered a major planet, began with a name of their own, while Earth acquired it over the years. Strange, don’t you think?