Where do stars' names come from?

[lpetrich]

The brightest stars have individual names like Sirius (Greek seirios: "scorcher"). Many of them have names related to what part of the constellation or asterism that they are in, like Denebola (Arabic dhanab al asad: "Tail of the Lion"). There are some other stars with "Deneb" in their names, those names also referring to tails. Likewise, Fomalhaut is "Mouth of the Fish", and Rigel is "Foot".

But that system has its limits, and in 1609, Johann Bayer decided on a simpler system: (number as Greek letter) of (constellation) where the stars are listed in order of apparent brightness. The of-constellation part is done using the Latin genitive or of-case.

Sirius in it is Alpha Canis Majoris or α CMa, where "Canis Majoris" is the genitive of "Canis Major": "Big Dog". In English, it would be Alpha of the Big Dog.

In 1712, Edmond Halley and Isaac Newton published John Flamsteed's catalog of stars without his permission. In that catalog, JF had listed stars as (number) of (constellation), where the number increases from west to east, in increasing "right ascension" (sort of like longitude).

Sirius in it is 9 Canis Majoris, #9 of the Big Dog.

More recent star cataloguers have not bothered with constellation locations. Thus, Sirius is:

HD 48915 -- Henry Draper Catalog #48915
HR 2491 -- Harvard Revised or Yale Bright Star Catalog #2491
BD −16°1591 -- Bonner Durchmunsterung (German: "Bonn Survey") star #1591 in declination (sort of like latitude) zone -16d to -17d.
GJ 244 A/B -- Gliese-Jahreiss catalog, or Gliese Catalog of Nearby Stars #244 with stars A and B
GCTP 1577.00 A/B -- the General Catalog of Trigonometric Parallaxes
HIP 32349 -- Hipparcos astrometric-satellite catalog #32349
ADS 5423 -- Aitken's Double-Star Catalog #5423
LTT 2638 -- Luyten Two-Tenths catalog #2638


Some notable stars still get individual names, like Barnard's Star and Kapteyn's Star, after some astronomers who discovered notable features of them.

 

[braces_for_impact]

Well, when to celebrities that love each other very much get together...

 

[lpetrich]

Well, when to celebrities that love each other very much get together...

Not that sort of star.

Here's another body-part name: Rasalhague, from Arabic Ra'is al Hawwa, "Head of the Serpent collector". So we have heads, mouths, legs/feet and tails. I've seen the theory that Betelgeuse's name is a corruption of an Arabic name meaning "Hand of the Giant" -- so we have arms/hands also.

 

[Bronzeage]

It's human nature to name things. We name places and things all the time. It's critical to good communication. The nature of the name depends upon the nature of the communication.

Prominent stars were named because they were used as time keepers and navigation aids. If someone told you to steer the boat toward Sirius until it set on the horizon, and then switch to a different star, both of you better agree on which star was which. There was no reason to name every star, just the ones which were easy to locate with certainty.

It's easy to see the practical problems of identifying the lesser stars in a way which eliminates ambiguity, and it appears several astronomers have found their own system, but this sort of thing is important only to astronomers.

 

[tupac chopra]

I met a guy the other night who runs astronomy courses. He told me that in ANE languages star names were all female.
I don't know if that is right

 

[Shake]

I think Neil deGrasse Tyson said that it was the discoverers who do the naming. Before Islam became radicalized, the Arab world was a pinnacle of scientific thought and discovery, hence our Arabic numbers and the many named stars like the ones in Orions Belt: Al Nilam, Al Nitak, and Mintaka.

 

[Malintent]

I think Neil deGrasse Tyson said that it was the discoverers who do the naming. Before Islam became radicalized, the Arab world was a pinnacle of scientific thought and discovery, hence our Arabic numbers and the many named stars like the ones in Orions Belt: Al Nilam, Al Nitak, and Mintaka.

This^ The Middle East was Earth's center of scientific discovery and thought prior to Islamic state sponsorship. They founded astronomy and thus got to name pretty much all of the stars visible to the naked eye in that hemisphere. They lost their hold on scientific prowess due to religion. sounding like a familiar story?

The founders effect...

Notice how all the world uses "stamps" for postage? every country using stamps has to put the name of their country on the stamp, (i.e. US Postage"). .except one... England. They invented postage. They just use "the stamp".... everyone else has to use their country's version of what England uses.

Notice how all the US commercial websites just end in .com? every other country that has a website registered on the internet has to put their country code for the address registration... (i.e. Amazon.co.uk). In the US, it is just Amazon.com. Why? Because we (the US) invented the internet.