A mythological figure became a book title
In 1595, the Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator published a large work of maps under the title Atlas. Its title page pictured Atlas, the figure from Greek mythology associated with bearing the heavens. The image and name gave readers a memorable way to identify the book: a collection that brought the world, and the skies above it, together on pages.
From one book to a whole category
At first, Atlas was the name of Mercator’s particular work, not the ordinary word for any map book. But the title was easy to reuse. As similar bound collections appeared, people began calling them atlases too. The proper name gradually became a common noun—much as a product or person’s name can become the everyday label for a whole kind of thing.
That shift also fit what printed map collections did. Instead of unfolding one enormous map, readers could turn from region to region, comparing places in a single volume. The book’s name came to describe that format, even when its cover had no Atlas on it.
The mythological picture therefore did more than decorate a map book: it helped supply the word for the map book itself.
