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
Names of God suffix "-im" ים creating a word like "ba`alim" ("owner(s)" and "adonim" ("lord(s), master(s)") that may also indicate a singular identity. In the Book of Exodus, God commands Moses to tell the people that 'I AM' sent him, and this is revered as one of the most important names of God according to Mosaic tradition. In , when Moses first spoke with God, God said, "I used to appear to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make myself known to them by my name YHWH." YHWH () is the proper name of God in Judaism. Neither