The same way Earth did.

Note: I looked up wowpedia, and yes I remember about "The Kingdom of Azeroth" from the RTS games, but there is no info on how that name came into existence, which is what I am wondering.

My husband pulled an old sci-fi book out of storage the other day. It's a trilogy written by C.J. Cherryh. The 3rd book is called 'Fires of Azeroth'. It was published in 1979.

Though not definite, there was an Ancient race called "Azotha" detailed in Lands of Conflict who presumably named the world after themselves.

Chris Metzen originally conceived the idea for Azeroth on November 5, 1955 when he slipped and hit his head on his bathroom sink while standing on the toilet to hang a clock.

Duno mabey he just sounded out words that sound cool :)
not everything needs to have a long explanation
except being late for work
the longer the beter, your boss will fall asleep and forget you were late

Well, given the interest the designers have in Lovecraft style lore, I wouldn't be surprised if it came from "Azathoth."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azathoth
http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/athoth.htm

Titan dare.

I think the best answer its the Humans did it! Have you hear about the The Eastern Kingdoms maybe it look like a single continent, but really they are three separate continents, (from north to south they are Lordaeron, Khaz Modan and Azeroth). [Note: Its kinda in the Earth, America maybe look like one huge continent but politically its divided in three minor one's (North America, Central America and South America), in Earth it look like that we just have a shorter imagination.]

Before the First War all the Knowing the World was The Eastern Kingdoms and the most powerful (at least in therm of size of they empires and population) where the Human Kindoms. That's what we know by fact, what we don't know but we can logically conclude its that with the past of the time therm get corrupted, start to using it freely and because there was a Empire of Lordaeron in the continent of Lordaeron, I suppose the name just pass it to mean the world.

My favorite comment is at the end of culling of stratholme, Arthas says, "I'll chase you to the ends of the Earth Mal'ganis!". Someone had a brain fart.

your question makes me wonder what the nightelf, and dwarf name for azeroth is in their respective languages.

@Amaxe - Great link! I'm not familiar with Lovecraft outside of wow's references, and that is a fascinating link. If Azeroth was indeed inspired by Azathoth, that would mean the entire planet is one living, breathing old god, and it would make sense how much strife and evil it's seen in its history.

He says "to the ends of the earth." Lowercase. The word 'earth' has always been used to describe the ground and such. Hence Deathwing's former office as The Earthwarder.

Firestyle, earth also means dirt. Like terra.

Our planet is named, in Latin, Terra Firma, Firm dirt.

You can use the word earth to mean any dirt. In this concept, he was saying he was chasing him to the end of the planet. It doesn't necessarily mean he was calling the planet Earth.

Think of it this way. We call the moon the moon, yet is has a name, Luna. We call our sun the sun, yet it has a name, Sol. There are other moons and suns out there that can be called sun and moon respectively.

@raposo02790 in shortly they don't, Belfs, Gnomes, Dwarfs, Nelfs, and Trolls (the "native" Azeroth races) us the common (human language) to call they world.

For example, America the continent, its named for Amerigo Vespucci an Italian explorer, navigator and cartographer who work for the Kingdom of Portugal and the Crown of Castile (Spain), and was the first European in realize that the land discover for Christopher Columbus it was in fact a whole new continent. Martin Waldseemüller was a German cartographer who is credited with the first recorded usage of the word America, on the 1507 map Universalis Cosmographia in honor of the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci. Martin Waldseemüller toke the Amerigo's name converter to the Latin, and change it to feminine. And now, regards of what language we speak we call it America.

@Drakkenfyre damn! you beat me with a simple and quicker answer, and you don't even try to answer @raposo02790, but you still did. Congratz!

Thanks, but, uh, I think you did a better job than I did, because I wasn't thinking of his question when I answered.

As I was answering simply about what Arthas was meaning, there are things to contradict my answer when it comes to things like celestial bodies. There are a few cases of different things on Azeroth getting different names. There are, or were, two moons. One was named White Lady, the other Blue Child. The smaller, blue one, Blue Child, was removed in a patch many years ago.

I believe the names are the common (as in the common language) name for them, but the Night Elves refer to the moon as Elune, as being both a goddess and the actual moon. Whereas the Tauren call the moon Mu'sha.

Pyromelter could be a poet
And not even know it

:P Were you also asking a magic mirror?

Given blizz's penchant for reference, I'm going to go with muse on this and say this is a nod to C.J. Cherryh's Morgaine series, especially because the Fires of Azeroth features an invading army coming through a gate between worlds and wreaking havoc on Azeroth. Seems awfully familiar, no?