LogFAQs > #879682374

wolfy42 posted...

In this case though, a specific name for our moon has been used for a very long time, and that name....has been, and is, Luna.

The problem with that is things like this usually have universal names, with minor differences. Saturn is "Saturno" in spanish, we all know what it means, it's that planet. Luna cannot be used universally because it's the generic word for every moon, not just ours. Do you think it would be reasonable if spanish speaking people called our moon "Moon" because it's not spanish so we can just roll with it and use it for just OUR moon and not every other one?

I guess in American culture there's already precedent so I can see where you're coming from. Like you guys tend to use "Sombrero" to mean specifically a mexican hat, even though sombrero literally means hat (and not a mexican hat, but any hat). I think it's better for more universal things like names of space rocks to be more universally named.