Who first gave the stars their names?

People have been gazing at the stars for many, many thousands of years. The very first people to look up and see the bright specks in the dark night most likely said dust what you would say. Oh, how beautiful they are; Aht They era so brightt

Soon they became more curious about this one or that one of the shining stars. They wanted to talk about them to each other. Maybe they tried pointing. That big bright one over there, next to the three little ones. Soon they found easier ways to point out single stars. First they found the group of stars that looked like a bear or a lion or a lady on a chair,

When they named the groups of stars, for they noticed that the stars kept the same patterns as they passed over the sky. We still name the stars in groups, which we call constellations. The names of the constellations were given long, long before the days of history, They were named for ancient heroes, strange animals and the people in ancient fairy tales.

In early times, the Big Dipper was called the Big Bear. For some reason those seven stars reminded the early star gazers of a bear. The Little Dipper reminded them of a little bear, and so it was called the Little Bear. The brightest group of stars, or constellation, they named for a long ago hunter named Orion. The group of stars shaped like a letter W which appears opposite to the Big Bear they named after a famous queen called Casseopeia. To them the queen seemed to be sitting in a chair, and that is how she is pictured on olden star maps.

Single stars were also named after favorite characters and heroes. Two stars which looked very much alike were called Pollux and Castor, after a pair of twins. Regulus, a bright star in the constellation of Leo the Lion, is the old name for a little king. Rigel, the bright star at the foot of the hunter Orion was an olds old name for foot, Most of the stars were named long, long before modern times. Though the constellations no longer remind us of the pictures that early men saw in the sky, we still keep their names. The modern fashion, however, is to give letters to the stars. Alpha, or A, is the brightest star in any constellation. Beta, or B, the second brightest star in that group, and so on.