Why was mercury named Hermes?

Answer 1

In the Classical mythology of the ancient Greeks, from the late bronze age well into the iron age of Archaeology, Hermes was the original messenger of the Gods. Myths can be vague, by definition but from about 400BC, Hundreds of years later, the Greek gods started to become popular in Rome and were "Romanised" and so it became popular to worship their idols and statues and devote temples to them with Roman equivalent names. Thus Hermes became Mercurius or Mercury. Hermes was also popular in Egyptian civilisation and from the time when Egypt became a Greek colony before Christ, he became associated with the Egyptian God Thoth or Djehuty.