What is the name of our moon and if it doesn't have one, why not? I think it should be called Selene

What is the name of our moon and if it doesn't have one, why not? I think it should be called Selene as we are doing Greek gods at school.

Eleanor Kelly aged 9, Rochdale England

• It's called Moon. In olden times, when science was written in Latin, it was called Luna, and when moons were discovered around other planets they were also named Luna - eg, Titan was called Luna Saturni by its discoverer, Christiaan Huygens,and this name was inevitably translated as "moon of Saturn". Hence what was originally the proper name of Moon became a generic term for all similar celestial bodies (see the terminology paragraph of "natural satellite" in Wikipedia for more).

  Jeremy Marchant, Stroud

• It is typical English arrogance to say that its name is 'moon' when in most European languages it has a name derived from the Latin 'Luna'.

  Pete Wigens, Stroud, UK

• To the ancient Greeks Artemis was the goddess of the moon whereas the Romans knew her as Diana. Not sure why it has to be a woman though.

  Alec Jameson, Hong Kong

• Moon (capital) is derived from the Latin word Mensis. That is also where we get the words month, monday, menstrual, etc. It's a close relative of the word measure, as it's derived from the root "me-" (measure, time)... Yes it's often called Luna too, derived from the Greek word for moon, Selene. Moon is actually more correct as the entire thread here is in English. Romance/Germanic languages are a little closer to English than Greek.

  Barry Smith, Roanoke, VA, USA