Where did the names for Jupiter's moons come from?

Answer 1

A lot of them came from Greek mythology. For instance, Io is the name of a naiad who was a priestess of Hera, but her beauty attracted Zeus and he made love to her. Zeus covered them both up by a big black cloud, but when Hera saw it, she was not fooled. She went to check out what was happening, and Zeus turned Io into a cow to hide her. Hera asked for it as her pet, and tided Io to a tree. Zeus took pity on Io and sent Hermes to free her. She escaped, but Hera sent a wasp to always sting Io. She ran away, finally coming to Egypt, where she had her two kids. They or their descendants, can't remember which one, finally went back to Greece, and I forget the rest. But yeah, a lot of moons were named after Greek mythology stuff. And the planets, besides Earth, were named after the Roman names of the Greek Gods. Venus: Aphrodite, Mars: Ares, Mercury: Hermes, Neptune: Poseidon, Pluto: Hades, and I forget who Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus are named after. But, almost all the things in the universe that we know of are named after things in mythology.

Answer 2

The names of Jupiter's moons come from a variety of sources. The four largest moons were named by Galileo Galilei in 1610 after characters in Greek mythology. Other smaller moons have been named after lovers and relatives of Jupiter (the Roman equivalent of the Greek god Zeus), as well as figures from Greco-Roman mythology.

Answer 3

Jupiter means Day Father. It is a very old Indo-European name, showing up in Sanskrit as Dyaus-pita and in Greek as Zeus.