How many Roman gods are named after planets or vice versa?
The names we use today for the innermost planets were assigned by the Romans and they named them after their Gods. These included Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The other three planets are not visible to the naked eye, so the Romans didn’t know they existed. When modern astronomers did discover them, they stuck with this convention and named these planets after Roman gods as well (Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto). I also remember hearing a story in recent years about an astronomer that thought that he had found a tenth planet. This astronomer broke with convention and name this “planet” after himself. (He who discovers it gets to name it.) Later observations showed that the body was just an asteroid. I guess that’s what he gets for breaking with tradition. 😉 An addendum needs to be added to this post. With in the past few months another body has been found beyond the orbit of Pluto. Though this discover is still under review, the evidence indicates that this is a legitimate ten
