Who named the planets?

W do not know who named the five visible planets, but they were named, long before the Christian Era, for ancient gods worshipped by the Greeks and Romans. Mercury was the messenger of the gods and Veuns was the mother goddess of love. Mars was the god of war and Jupiter was king of the old gods. Saturn was a deposed king.

The old .names were kept through the ages and, when the telescope revealed three more planets, it was decided to name them also for the ancient gods, Uranus was an ancient god of the skies and Neptune was a river god. The little planet Pluto, so far from the sun, was named for the Greek god of the dark region called Hades. These three planets were named by modern astronomers.