Sualocin (α Delphini) and Rotanev (β Delphini) are names of stars, the result of an enduring practical joke played by the Italian astronomer Nicoḷ Cacciatore, assistant to Giuseppe Piazzi, who reversed the letters in the Latin version of his own name ("Nicolaus Venator").
The two mysterious names Sualocin and Rotanev simply appeared without explanation in the Palermo star catalogue of 1814. It took some time before other astronomers caught on to their origin; the names have stuck.
The strange names alpha (Sualocin) and beta (Rotanev) first appeared for these stars in the Palermo Catalogue of 1814, and long were a mystery to all.
But Miss Rolleston, in her singular book Mazzaroth, considered in some quarters [bibical] as of authority, wrote that they are derived, alpha (Sualocin) from the Arabic Scalooin, swift (as the flow of water) and beta from the Syriac and Chaldee Rotaneb, or Rotaneu, swiftly running (as water in the trough).
The constellation of Delphinus is personified as Amphitrite, the goddess of the sea, because the dolphin induced her to become the wife of Neptune, and Delphinus was known as Persuasor Amphitrites, as well as Neptunus and Triton.
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