It was around 350 BC, the Greek philosopher Aristotle, was among the first people to say that the Earth was spherical. At the time, the Greeks were aware of the Arctic regions in the North. They had named it the Arctos. The word ‘Arctos’ was derived from the bear.
The constellations that we can see in the sky, one of them is of the Great Bear, they were inspired by that constellation and named the Arctic region, Arctos. Because they knew that the Earth is spherical, they knew that the North and South are like mirror images and would have similar features. So they named the unknown southern region Antarctos. It meant antithetical to the bear. The opposite of Arctos. And from here, the name Antarctic was derived.
