ANSWERS: 3
  • Most of the constellation names that we use in Western civilization were given by the ancient Greeks. This becomes more evident as you become familiar with Greek mythology and see how many mythical gods and heroes have been given constellations. However I'm sure the Asians, Africans, and Indians have given their own names to the constellations as well.
  • 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.
  • Interpreting the question to mean who gave most of the constellations their current names, as used by astronomers, then the answer is Gerard of Cremona in 1175 AD! The words astronomers use for most constellations today can be traced to the "Almagest", the first proper star chart, which was compiled by the Greek astronomer, Ptolemy,.and borrowed the names of constellations from various existing works. But the words astronomers use today aren't Greek! They are Latin. So where did the Latin words we use come from? The Almagest only survived in Arabic copies in the East, (hence the name it is given), and didn't return to the West until translated by the aforementioned Gerard, which became the standard translation. So we can actually trace the words to this particlar Italian translation and translator and his choices for the translation.

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