Plouton became the Roman god who both rules the underworld and distributed riches from below. Perhaps from fear of pronouncing his name, around the 5th century BC, the Greeks started referring to Hades as Plouton ( Πλούτων Ploútōn), with a root meaning 'wealthy', considering that from the abode below (i.e., the soil) come riches (e.g., fertile crops, metals and so on). Later the iota became silent, then a subscript marking ( ᾍδης), and finally omitted entirely ( Άδης).

The name as it came to be known in classical times was Háidēs ( Ἅιδης). Other poetic variations of the name include Aïdōneús ( Ἀϊδωνεύς) and the inflected forms Áïdos ( Ἄϊδος, gen.), Áïdi ( Ἄϊδι, dat.), and Áïda ( Ἄϊδα, acc.), whose reconstructed nominative case * Áïs ( * Ἄϊς) is, however, not attested. In Homeric and Ionic Greek, he was known as Áïdēs. Detail from an Attic red-figure amphora, c. Martin Litchfield West argues instead for an original meaning of 'the one who presides over meeting up' from the universality of death. The earliest attested form is Aḯdēs ( Ἀΐδης), which lacks the proposed digamma. Modern linguists have proposed the Proto-Greek form * Awides ('unseen'). An extensive section of Plato's dialogue Cratylus is devoted to the etymology of the god's name, in which Socrates is arguing for a folk etymology not from 'unseen' but from 'his knowledge ( eidenai) of all noble things'. The origin of Hades' name is uncertain but has generally been seen as meaning 'the unseen one' since antiquity. Ploútōn), itself a euphemistic title often given to Hades. The Etruscan god Aita and the Roman gods Dis Pater and Orcus were eventually taken as equivalent to Hades and merged into Pluto, a Latinisation of Plouton ( Greek: Πλούτων, translit. In artistic depictions, Hades is typically portrayed holding a bident and wearing his helm with Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog of the underworld, standing to his side. Hades received the underworld, Zeus the sky, and Poseidon the sea, with the solid earth, long the province of Gaia, available to all three concurrently. He and his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, defeated their father's generation of gods, the Titans, and claimed rulership over the cosmos.

Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although this also made him the last son to be regurgitated by his father. Háidēs Ἅιδης, Háidēs), in the ancient Greek religion and myth, is the god of the dead and the king of the underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades ( / ˈ h eɪ d iː z/ Greek: ᾍδης, translit.

In the house of hades