Seventh planet from the sun in our solar system, second to last before Neptune which is about the same size. One of the four giant together with Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune. Name should be pronounced ˈjʊərənəs/ YOOR-ə-nəs
…but no one does that, right?
Uranus has become the but-end in our neighbor space. And for no reason! All the other planets in the western naming tradition are named after Roman gods and goddesses. Not Uranus, named after the Greek god of the enveloping heaven. Son of Gaia and father to the Titans (with Gaia, desperate times etc.) There even is a valid Roman version. Caelus is right there, serves the same mythological function if not as prevalent in the Roman tradition.
Now, the seven traditional celestial bodies were named by Roman when Rome was the world. Uranus was discovered in 1781 by the German-British composer, optician and amateur astronomer (love the renaissance feel of that) William Herschel.
He got a hefty sum of money to build bigger telescopes by the British king George III. This is the guy America fought to claim independence. He was against slavery but also became quite mad as he got older so he was a bit of a mixed bag. Anyway, as a thanks for the telescope Herschel named his newfound planet Georgium Sidus (George's Star). Bad name. Don’t name your planets after your heroes kids, especially if they are still alive. The French called it Herschel (after its discoverer, cute). Even “Neptune” was suggested. Herschel discovered a sleuth of stuff, like UV-light. He also proclaimed that all planets had life, even the Sun. So, yeah.
Anyway in 1782 a German scientist, Johann Elert Bode suggested the name Uranus to keep with the old naming convention. He also thought it was clever since Uranus was the father of Saturn
…which is wasn’t, Caelus was. Did he just switch the names out by mistake? Did his books had it wrong? No one knows.
And we are stuck with a name English speaker find hilarious, at least for the time being. “Dick” and “Pussy” hasn’t always been hefted sexual meaning and we get new ones all the time like “thirst”. Will the meaning of Uranus change or will its name change? Not likely. Soon Jupiter or Saturn will mean something nasty.
Most Asian countries name it “Heavenly King” or “King of the Sky” since that was Ouranus role. Cool planet though.
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