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[Alexandr Korol]

Then I open the Wikipedia article about Mercury. “Mercury is the smallest planet in the Solar System and the closest to the Sun. It is named after the ancient Roman god of commerce — swift Mercury — because it moves across the sky faster than the other planets. The apparent distance of Mercury from the Sun, as seen from Earth, never exceeds 28°. This proximity to the Sun means the planet can be seen only for a short time after sunset or before sunrise, usually in twilight.” Funny, right? “Through a telescope, Mercury shows phases that change from a thin crescent to almost a full disk, like Venus and the Moon, and sometimes it transits across the Sun’s disk. The period of Mercury’s phase changes is equal to the synodic period of its orbit — about 116 days.”

“The astronomical symbol of Mercury is a stylized depiction of the symbol of the Roman god Mercury (or the Greek Hermes) — a caduceus with two intertwined snakes at its top. This symbol was already used in Greek papyri of the 3rd–4th centuries AD; in the Middle Ages, as with some other symbols, a cross was added.”

“Due to the difficulty of observing it, people for a long time believed that Mercury observed in the morning was one planet, and in the evening a completely different one. As a result, Mercury usually had two names.
The earliest known observation of Mercury was recorded in the ‘Mul.Apin’ tablets (a collection of Babylonian astrological tables). This observation was most likely made by Assyrian astronomers around the 14th century BC. The Sumerian name used to designate Mercury in the ‘Mul.Apin’ tablets can be transcribed as UDU.IDIM.GU\U4.UD (‘the jumping planet’) and is sometimes read as Gu- utu. Initially, the planet was associated with the god Ninurta, and in later records it is called ‘Nabu/Nebo’ after the god of wisdom and scribal arts.
There is a hypothesis that the name ‘Apollo’ corresponded to Mercury’s visibility in the morning sky, and ‘Hermes’ (‘Hermaon’) to its evening appearance. According to other sources, the ancient Greeks called Mercury Apollo and Stilbon (from around 200 BC — Hermes). It was also simply referred to as the Star of Hermes.
The Romans named the planet Mercury’s star in honor of the swift-footed god of commerce, Mercury, for its rapid movement across the sky compared to other planets.