# Fundamental nomenclature **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 29, 2000, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fundamental-nomenclature/16573 "2000-04-29T13:41:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jrishaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5fc32e/32.png) [@jrishaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jrishaw)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2000, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fundamental-nomenclature/16573/1 "2000-04-29T13:41:24Z")
Simple question. Who named Earth? Or… Who named our Solar System; but, more specifically, who named Earth? ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2000, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fundamental-nomenclature/16573/2 "2000-04-29T15:16:38Z")
I think we went this before-- check the archives. I think the consensus was that we called the stuff under our feet dirt or earth before we were aware that it was a planet. Later we discovered that the dirt was actually a quite large and spherically shaped lump of dirt. I think it is the same in other languages (ie Erde: Earth and earth in Germ.). We knew that the thing was there before we knew its nature. Is our solar system’s name technically “the solar system”? It would make sense, as the name of our sun is Sol. Probably came about with Copernicus or whoever realized that the planets orbit Sol, hence a solar system. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2000, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fundamental-nomenclature/16573/3 "2000-04-29T18:13:27Z")
An additional comment, [Do other languages call Earth “Earth”?](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mearth.html) from the mailbag. (manhattan here. I’m doing a non-controversial edit to add the quotation marks to the link, which are now necessary.)