Who gave the constellations their names, and when?
Actually, we think that most of the norther constellations got their names through the ancient Minoans. Their designations then passed through the Greeks to get to us. This applies to the northern constellations. The southern constellations were not designated by Europeans until they started exploring down there in the 1500’s – 1700’s. At least this is what the textbook from which I used to teach astronomy had to say on this subject. The Polynesians probably had their own set of constellations designated since they navigated by the stars too, but theirs are not the ones that we use.
