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A. It seems we're always answering inquiries about the origins of the Mars gods names we use in MarsQuest. When I first wrote The Mars Show back in 1988 I sifted through old astronomy and mythology books to find a dozen or so names for Mars. Throughout history Mars has held fascination as a god or some other special personage in the skies, and has most often (but not always) been embodied as a god of War. The history of Mars goes back to earliest civilizations, which is not surprising considering how visible Mars is and how easy it is to track (and map) its movements. In my research I often found that the name for Mars was bequeathed from one civilization or culture to another, borrowed as needed, and sometimes imposed by a conqueror onto the pantheon of deities revered by the vanquished.
I've listed below the names for Mars that we used in the show, along with brief explanations of the region of the world from which they came, and in some cases, some relevant cultural information. These are not by any means the only names that were ever used for Mars, they're just the list that we chose to dramatize this show. Below the names I've listed some of the sources I used, along with some Web sites which may be of interest to you.
 Horus the Red: Egyptian, variant on Red Horus, which is translated from a 19th and 20th-dynasty name: "Heru-tesher." (3, 9)
 Morning Star (Who Overcomes Evening Star). This comes from the Skidi Pawnee of North America. (4)
 Nabu -- A Babylonian name (5) mostly associated with the planet Mercury, but assigned by the Sumerians to the planet Mars. For them, he was the god of wisdom. There are also some links to Nabu as a Chaldean god. (6)
 Nirgal (also spelled Nergal) -- worshiped in Babylonia and Assyria; the god of war; sometimes associated with the Sun; mostly associated with death and destruction.
 Urbarra -- believed to be of early Sumerian origin.
 Salbatanu -- this name is of Babylonian origin. (1)
 Verethragna -- of Persian origin. (1)
 Mustabarru -- Babylonia (7)
 Lohitanga -- Sanskrit (one of many variants on the name of a war god associated with the Red Planet)
 Pyroeis -- this is an early Greek name for Mars (3)
 Mirikha -- another Sanskrit variant (3)
 Artagnes -- Persian (found in various sites around Turkey and what was Persia). (7)
 Angares -- a variant of Angaraka (another Sanskrit name) (3)
 Ares -- Greek (3)
 Mars -- Roman (3)
1. Encyclopedia of Middle-Eastern Mythology and Religion, 1993.
2. Blunck, Jürgen. Mars and its Satellites, Jurgen Blunck, Exposition University Books, 1982.
3. "Origins of the names of Planets and Satellites," Carl Masthay, The Planetarian, Vol. 16, No. 4, October 1987.
4. Chamberlain, Von del. When Stars Came Down to Earth: Cosmology of the Skidi Pawnee Indians of North America, Ballena Press/Center for Archaeoastronomy (Smithsonian Institution), 1982.
5. The Ancient History Sourcebook Web page: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/asbook.html
6. The Probert Encylopedia: http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/index.html
7. http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/sci/history/AHistoryofScienceVolumeI/chap9.html
8. http://www.adiyamanli.org/mt_nemrut.htm -- This a tourist site, but it also has a brief description of the gods' names and some of their lineages.
9. Budge, E.A. Wallis. The Gods of the Eyptians, Studies in Egyptian Mythology.
Volume 2. Dover Publications, New York, 1969.
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