As stars change their relative positions to the earth, constellations will change shape. Will constellation names ever change, or will the names remain the same, even though the constellation no longer resembles it’s original “idea”? Not that most constellations resemble anything now. Or will theses star positions change so far in the future that it really don’t matter?
On Earth, the constellation names probably won’t change for several hundred thousand years. OTOH, when we start to move to other solar systems, the constellations will cease to make any sense–and some other sort of designation will have to be created. Probably, it’ll be something very technical.
LL
There was once an attempt to Christianize constellation names… you know, Saint Peter instead of Orion, or God Smiting the Infidels instead of Hercules. (Not their actual names, but I like the idea of a constellation named God Smiting the Infidels.) It didn’t catch on.
It’ll take a very long time indeed for the constellations to appear to change significantly. Considering how accurate they look right now, this may not be a problem: Maybe they’ll even start to actually look like what they’re supposed to be. C’mon, a W is supposed to be a queen?
On a shorter timescale, the soonest we can expect to see any significant change in a constellation would be a few thousand years. Betelgeuse, the shoulder (or armpit, depending on your language) of Orion, is expected to go supernova very soon, astronomically speaking: The most recent estimate I’ve heard is “Within about a thousand years”. The Hunter would look mightily odd, indeed, without his first or second brightest star, so we may just have to rename him then.