E.g. Tartarus instead of Tartaros, Daedalus instead of Daidalos, Cerberus instead of Kerberos, Cassandra instead of Kassandra… There are a lot of these names that are more widely used in their Romanized forms. Yet if we talk about mythological names instead the Greek names are more widely used (althrough this was different over 200 years ago)

  • Sundial@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    Because the Roman’s are the ones who conquered Europe so their standards and customs got passed along.

  • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Presumably for the same reason we say Rome and Florence instead of Roma and Fiorenza. Just as England has been heavily influenced by French culture, all of Europe has seen things through the prism of the Roman Empire.

  • Hegar@fedia.io
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    1 month ago

    As medieval and renaissance scholars regained interest in the pagan past, they wrote about it in latin. That’s why we still largely use the latinized names.

    These scholars used latin partly because it was the lingua franca of their elite audience, but also that way the only people who could read it would have had a proper church education. And thus less likely to be lead from the path of righteousness by these pagans and all their wicked thinkin’.

  • AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    The classical Romanization was more accurate in its time—the issue is that the common pronunciation of classical Latin changed over time (for instance, the “c” became soft in many contexts, instead of always being pronounced as “k” as it was in classical Latin).

    If you use the original classical pronunciation for Latin, you’ll also pronounce the classical romanized Greek names correctly—and if you spell them the classical way you’ll recognize them more easily in Latin sources. The modernized romanization is most useful if you’re only interested in Greece and not in the classical world as an integrated whole.