Question: how were planets named?

Helen Johnson answered on 19 Nov 2014:

Hi Tori, most of the planets are named after Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Venus and Mercury were given their names thousands of years ago. The other planets were not discovered until much later, after telescopes were invented. Pluto was apparently named by an English school girl, in a competition at the time it was discovered in 1930 🙂 I’ve actually been to the observatory where they first discovered it! Though of course it’s a dwarf planet now instead. In 2006 scientists decided that since there were lots of other Pluto-sized objects on the outskirts of the solar system, we would call anything which hasn’t yet cleared out its orbit a dwarf planet.