Name of Mars

In English, the planet Mars is named after Mars, the Roman god of war,^[1] an association made because of its red color, which suggests blood.^[2] The adjectival form of Latin Mars is Martius,^[3] from which the English word Martian derives, used as an adjective or for a putative inhabitant of Mars, and Martial, used as an adjective corresponding to Terrestrial for Earth.^[4] In Greek, the planet is known as Ἄρης Arēs, with the inflectional stem Ἄρε- Are-.^[5] That is because of the Greek equivalent to Mars is Ares. From this come technical terms such as areology, as well as the (rare) adjective Arean^[6] and the star name Antares.

Mars is also the basis of the name of the month of March (from Latin Martius mēnsis 'month of Mars'),^[7] as well as of Tuesday (Latin dies Martis 'day of Mars'), where the old Anglo-Saxon god Tíw was identified as the Anglo-Saxon equivalent to Mars by Interpretatio germanica.^[8]

Due to the global influence of European languages in astronomy, a word like Mars or Marte for the planet is common around the world, though it may be used alongside older, native words. A number of other languages have provided words with international usage. For example:

• Arabic مريخ ايب mirrīkh – which connotes fire – is used as the (or a) name for the planet in Persian, Urdu, Malay and Swahili,^[9] among others
• Chinese 火星 [Mandarin Huǒxīng] 'fire star' (in Chinese the five classical planets are identified with the five elements) is used in Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese.^[10]
• India uses the Sanskrit term Mangal derived from the Hindu goddess Mangala.^[11]
• A long-standing nickname for Mars is the "Red Planet". That is also the planet's name in Hebrew, מאדים ma'adim, which is derived from אדום adom, meaning 'red'.^[12]
• The archaic Latin form Māvors (/ˈmeɪvɔːrz/) is seen, but only very rarely, in English, though the adjectives Mavortial and Mavortian mean 'martial' in the military rather than planetary sense.^[13]