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shpadoinkle_sue's avatar

How did Earth get it's name?

Asked by shpadoinkle_sue (7188points) April 26th, 2010

I kind of know the answer to this, I just wanted to see what other people think. What’s your determination on the origin of our planet’s name?

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9 Answers

JeffVader's avatar

I believe it’s derived from the Latin ‘Terra’

DarkScribe's avatar

In what language? It is not only known as “earth”.

ucme's avatar

Because uranus was already picked.Terra firma latin for solid earth would be my guess.

Brian1946's avatar


I think you’re right.

I couldn’t find Latin in the Google language translator, but the Italian word for Earth is “Terra”.

rebbel's avatar

In Dutch she is called “Aarde” which is soil in English.

Cruiser's avatar

It wasn’t always called earth. First it was called “Ugh!” Then 10,000 years later it was called “Fucking cold hellhole”, then 10,000 more years later when writing was invented it was shortened to just “hell hole”. Then 10,000 years later it was called “Flat as a Pancake”. and then when things got all scholarly…some scribe forced to come up with a name for his Professor came up with “Earth” which was an acronym for “Exactly As Round Theo’s Head”. True story…found it on Wiki…

mattbrowne's avatar

O.E. eorðe “ground, soil, dry land,” also used (along with middangeard) for “the (material) world” (as opposed to the heavens or the underworld), from P.Gmc. *ertho (cf. O.N. jörð, M.Du. eerde, O.H.G. erda, Goth. airþa), from PIE base *er-. The earth considered as a planet was so called from c.1400.

BoBo1946's avatar

The word around town, is that Chaz named it!!!!

grumpyfish's avatar

There’s a science fiction theory that most culture’s planets will generally be the dominant local language word for “dirt”

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