Has absolutely nothing to do with actual bears though.

The name comes from the constellation Ursa Major, which in Greek was Arktos Megale. Both mean the Great Bear.

Basically it just means north and not north because the Ursa Major constellation has the North Star in it.

It does just kinda work out that bears are in the northern hemisphere and not the southern hemisphere. There’s only one bear native to the southern hemisphere, the Spectacled Bear native to the Andes mountain in South America. There are no bears native to Africa or Oceania at all.

yeah if you put bears on antarctica they mutually annihilate

This has come up before on lemmy.

Wouldn’t a better translation given the context be something like the place opposite to the place where there are bears? It’s not like the Greeks somehow intuited that there was such a place and that there would be no bears there.

You fell for the bait.

But I learned so it's fine

In German Baerbel is a woman's name. And you say Baer if you mean beaver. The more you know. 🤷‍♀️

So did the Greeks traverse the whole planet? Like the idea isn't too far fetched but it's just weird to think about Mediterraneans traveling to the arctics