The planet Earth get its name from the old English word earth. Before people realized that the Earth is a planet, our word, “earth,” simply meant the ground beneath us. The word later came to mean both “ground” and “world.”
Old English also gave us the word, “world,” in the form of weorold. This is the combination of wer, “man,” and yldu, “age.” So wer yldu can be translated into the phrase “the age of man.”
Other countries have different words for the planet Earth. The French use la terre. the Russians use zemlya. The Dutch use aarde. And despite all the different names it’s known by, it’s home to us all.
What is certain though is of all the Planet’s names, Earth is the only one in our solar system that does not come from Greco-Roman mythology. All of the other planets were named after Greek and Roman gods and goddesses.
What is Earth’s code name? Since there is only one planet Earth, it is known simply as “the Earth.” “Terra” is not a correct name for Earth, nor are “Sol” and “Luna.” These are simply the Latin for Earth, Sun, and Moon.
It was only the newly discovered objects that got these names which looked like stock numbers in a catalogue (which is exactly what they were). Objects which already had universally understood common names are still known by those names, in the scientific astronomical lexicon.
Content for this question contributed by Carrie Rosenwald, resident of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
