Ceres (dwarf Planet) - Name

Name

Piazzi originally suggested the name Cerere Ferdinandea for his discovery, after both the mythological figure Ceres (Roman goddess of agriculture, Italian Cerere) and King Ferdinand III of Sicily. "Ferdinandea" was not acceptable to other nations of the world and was thus dropped. Ceres was also called Hera for a short time in Germany. In Greece, it is called Demeter (Δήμητρα), after the Greek equivalent of the Roman goddess Cerēs; in English, that name is used for the asteroid 1108 Demeter. The adjectival form of the name is Cererian, derived from the Latin genitive Cerēris. The old astronomical symbol of Ceres is a sickle, ⚳, similar to Venus's symbol ♀, but with a gap in the upper circle (and with a variant under the influence of the initial 'C'); this was later replaced with the numbered disk ①.

The element cerium, discovered in 1803, was named after the asteroid. In the same year, another element was also initially named after Ceres, but its discoverer changed its name to palladium (after the second asteroid, 2 Pallas) when cerium was named.