[Razengan]

I've always preferred "Terra" or "Gaia" to "Earth."

It could be a preference from video games, or maybe it’s because the common usage and being a synonym for ground and dirt has made the word seem ”low-brow” and the alternatives classy, exotic or poetic, and if their popularity was reversed we would think "Earth" was a classier word, but still.

“Terrans” will always sound better than “Earthlings” however. :)

[nashashmi]

Where did the name Earth come from? https://www.indifferentlanguages.com/words/earth

It is a common word in many languages and it has many forms like Ard or Erd or Jord.

The other word for earth that is also very common is zameen, but that means land.

[umanwizard]

You can usually look up etymologies on Wiktionary: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Earth#Etymology

Earth comes "from Middle English erthe, from Old English eorþe (“earth; Earth”), from Proto-Germanic erþō (“earth”), from Proto-Indo-European h₁er- (“earth”)."

Also (from the page for lowercase "earth"): "Probably unrelated, and of unknown etymology, is Old Armenian երկիր (erkir, “earth”)). Likewise, the phonologically similar Proto-Semitic *ʾarṣ́- (whence Arabic أَرْض‏ (ʾarḍ), Hebrew אֶרֶץ‏ (ʾereṣ)) is probably not related."

[Analemma_]

I think this is just one instance of a near-universal perception among English speakers that Greek/Latin words ("Terra") sound more sophisticated than Anglo-Saxon ones ("earth").

It's hard to hypothesize about whether this could be reversed in an alternate universe because this tendency goes back many centuries: for a loooong time Latin was the language of the scholarly and political elite, whereas Anglo-Saxon Old English was used by commoners.

[int_handler]

There is a similar reason for why English swear words sound Germanic: http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/06/swear-words-etymo...

[lvkleist]

Such an interesting article. Churchill was known to take advantage of this in his speeches, for example in (parts of) the famous "We shall fight them on the beaches": https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/97665/did-the-we...

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all. - Winston Churchill

[dghughes]

>for a loooong time Latin was the language of the scholarly and political elite

French was too for hundreds of years even up until now and maybe for the EU again after Brexit.

[umanwizard]

"Terra" means ground/dirt in Latin just as much as "earth" does in English.

[gnarbarian]

Terra also means ground, for example: terra firma.

[Pmop]

It's funny because in Brazilian portuguese, people commonly use terra to refer to dirt.

[nashashmi]

Some people use Earth for dirt as well, like earthwork.