Hades three-headed guard dog Cerberus. The Etruscan god Aita and the Roman gods Dis Pater and Orcus were eventually taken as equivalent to Hades and merged into Pluto, a Latinization of Plouton (", Ploútōn"), itself a euphemistic title often given to Hades. The origin of Hades' name is uncertain, but has generally been seen as meaning "the unseen one" since antiquity. An extensive section of Plato's dialogue "Cratylus" is devoted to the etymology of the god's name, in which Socrates is arguing for a folk etymology not from "unseen" but from "his knowledge ("eidenai") of all noble things". Modern linguists have
The Nine Billion Names of God time that the monks are pasting the final printed names into their holy books. Then they notice that "overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out." In 2004, "The Nine Billion Names of God" won the retrospective Hugo Award for Best Short Story for the year 1954. "Kirkus Reviews" called it "quietly remarkable" and "the Guardian" considered it to be a "wonderful apocalyptic rib-tickler". Stating that the story "introduced many Western readers to an intriguing speculation in Oriental religions", Carl Sagan in 1978 listed "The Nine Billion Names of God" as among the "rare few science‐fiction [stories that] combine