How did Antarctica get its name?

Answer 1

More than 2000 years ago, Greek writers described a large mass of land in the south of the world. Even though they had never seen it, they believed it must exist so that it could 'balance' the land they knew about in the northern half of the world. They named this imagined land 'Anti-Arktos', meaning the 'opposite of the Arctic'.

As well, Arctos, which means bear in the ancient Greek language, describes a stellar constellation only visible from the Northern Hemisphere. Again, anti-arktos develops into Antarctica.