The Strange Naming Conventions of Astronomy by Ben Montet.
From the post:
If you’ve spent time around the astronomical literature, you’ve probably heard at least one term that made you wonder “why did astronomers do that?” G-type stars, early/late type galaxies, magnitudes, population I/II stars, sodium “D” lines, and the various types of supernovae are all members of the large, proud family of astronomy terms that are seemingly backwards, unrelated to the underlying physics, or annoyingly complicated. While it may seem surprising now, the origins of these terms were logical at the time of their creation. Today, let’s look at the history of a couple of these terms, to figure out why astronomers did that.
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Ben covers a couple of odd naming cases but has left thousands of others as an exercise for the reader!
Names that are used in astronomical literature for centuries.
The richness of names isn’t going away so long as we keep records of our past. Whatever style of names, such as “cool URIs,” may come or go out of fashion.