Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
Planet Proserpine
What Should We Name Planet 9?
The math is pretty clear: our Sun has a ninth planet out there, so far out that it makes Pluto look like a next-door neighbor.
For now, they've taken to calling it Planet Nine. But if and when it's actually discovered, we'll need a better name than that.
What, then, should we call it?
First, a few parameters.
We should name P9 for a goddess.
Gods know, we've got plenty of Boy planets out there already. We could use more Girls in this family.
We should name P9 for a Classical deity.
Only a polytheist nomenclature is equal to describing the magnificence of That Which Is; all the other planets are already so-named. (While a foolish consistency may be the hobgoblin of small minds, internal systemic consistency is a simple matter of aesthetics. Call it contextual cognitive resonance, if you like.) No pantheon-mixing in this solar system, please.
The name should be in its Latin—not Greek—form.
After all, we say Saturn, not Khronos, Neptune, not Poseidon. While a foolish consistency may be the hobgoblin of small minds....
The Latin name should be in Anglicized form.
After all, we say Saturn, not Saturnus, Neptune, not Neptunus. A foolish consistency...
Granted the above parameters, then, an obvious choice presents itself.
Persephone has been a popular name among writers of science fiction for a hypothetical planet-beyond-Neptune. That's mythologically good for our trans-Plutonian planet, but violates the third parameter enumerated above. Besides, there's already an asteroid of that name.
The Romans, of course, knew Persephone as Proserpina, which—in case you haven't been reading any Elizabethan authors recently—Englishes neatly as Proserpine.
(That's PRAW-ser-pine. Stress that first syllable, and keep that I long: the last syllable's like the tree. After all, we say VEEnus, not WAYnus, as the Romans did. A foolish consistency....)
A further advantage of the Anglicized name: since it's not in common use to denote anything else—not even the Dark Goddess Herself—it clearly designates the planet in question, not anything else.
Planet Proserpine.
Coming soon—just possibly—to a solar system near you.
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