[tpeo]

Why is it that it bothers you that it's a Greek name and not that there's a planet named after the sky?

[int_handler]

It's not named after the sky. It's named after the God of the Sky, which doesn't bother me any more than other planetary bodies being named after deities of couriers, beauty, war, thunder, agriculture, ocean, the underworld, and so on.

The main reasons to rename Uranus is 1) consistency and 2) the puns. Either name it Caelus to be consistent with the naming convention used for the other planets or name it Ouranos to be closer to its Greek spelling and pronunciation.

I prefer (1) because the current situation is similar to having a codebase where all class names are PascalCase but there's this one class name in Upper_Snake_Case.

[planteen]

Is it really worth the waste of time it would be to debate this at the IAU and the confusion it would cause? Dwarf planets don't follow any set mythology (e.g., Makemake follows Easter Island mythology). Most people aren't experts of Greek and Roman mythology. The English language is full of inconsistencies.

[tpeo]

It is named after the sky. Or rather, it's named after a deity which was named after the sky: οὐρανός is/was the common term for sky in Greek.

[speakeron]

> the puns

That's a reason to keep the name - it's a rich seam that never seems to run dry. Also, if we did want to change the name, we all know what the anointed successor is...

[tpeo]

The valley spirit never dies;

It is the woman, primal mother.

Her gateway is the root of heaven and earth.

It is like a veil barely seen.

Use it; it will never fail.

~Lao Tzu