The name Arrokoth was chosen by the New Horizons team to represent the Powhatan people indigenous to the Tidewater region of Virginia and Maryland in the eastern United States, and formally announced with the permission of the Powhatan nation’s Pamunkey Indian Tribe elders.
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Name origin: Greek goddess or personified spirit (daimona) of strife, discord, contention and rivalry. Eris was often portrayed specifically as the daimona of the strife of war, haunting the battlefield and delighting in human bloodshed. Because of Eris’ disagreeable nature she was the only goddess not to be invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. When she turned up anyway and was refused admittance, she raged and threw in the golden apple that famously led to the Trojan War. She was closely identified with Enyo, the goddess of war and a close companion of Ares.
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Name origin: Hawai’ian goddess of fertility and childbirth. Mother of many important deities (including Pele, Hi’iaka and Namaka) and herself among the first worshipped on the Hawai’ian islands. She repeatedly transforms herself from an old woman to a young girl, and returns to her homeland periodically to give birth to further generations of humans.
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Name origin: Hindu god of water and the celestial ocean. Varuna was also the god of law in the underwater world, and may have been replaced eventually by Indra. He is said to have unlimited knowledge.
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Name origin: Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure and procreation. As one of the principal Olympian gods, there are multiple myths about her.
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Stateira was a queen of ancient Persia who died about 400 BCE; wife of Artaxerxes II. She had a son, who became Artaxerxes III. She was a popular ruler, apparently because she talked to ordinary people, but did not get on well with her mother-in-law Parysatis, who eventually poisoned her.
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Mandeville is the capital and largest town in the parish of Manchester in Middlesex, Jamaica. It was laid out in 1816, and named after Viscount Mandeville, the eldest son of the Duke of Manchester, who was then governor of Jamaica.
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The Pythia was the high priestess and oracle of the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Established by the 8th century BCE (though some sources date the shrine’s beginnings around 600 years farther back), the Pythia became pre-eminent by the 7th century BCE. Widely respected, the priestess continued to be consulted until the late 4th century CE.
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Name origin: Ancient Greek goddess of the underworld. Persephone as a vegetation goddess and her mother Demeter were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which promised the initiated a happy afterlife.
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Aiolos was the divine keeper of the winds and king of the mythical, floating island of Aiolia (Aeolia). He kept the violent Storm-Winds locked safely away inside the cavernous interior of his isle, releasing them only at the command of greatest gods to wreak devastation upon the world.
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