How did Buddha get its name?

Answer 1

'Buddha' is not a name, but a title. The word 'Buddha' means 'The awakened one' so i think it was a proper human name but a name like 'god' , not a real name but like a label.

Addendum: In Thich Nhat Hanh's biography of the Buddha Old Path White Clouds he writes that as he was meditating under the pippala (bo) tree two children would come and visit him to make offerings and receive lessons. After he attained enlightenment he asked the children to bring their friends so he could share his discoveries with them.

After a teaching on mindfulness involving tangerines the children suggested to him the name "Buddha" which is taken from budh which means "awaken" in Magadhi. They also suggested naming his path the "Path of Awareness" and the tree under which he reached enlightenment the "Bodhi" tree as bodhi shares the same root as budh.

Answer 2

The word Buddha means awaken or enlightened. Siddhartha Gautama, when he realized the true nature of the world and why people are so dissatisfied with it became enlightened and hence was called The Buddha.

Answer 3

In the year 534 BCE, a young Indian prince named Siddhartha Gautama (age 29) was deeply troubled about the fact that so many people suffer. So he left his wife and child and renounced his throne to find out the answer to why there was suffering. Now it should be noted when Buddhists speak of suffering this includes dissatisfaction (unhappiness) with the way things are. Siddhartha went to study with various gurus to try to find the answer to his question. Theses gurus had him do various types of yoga and meditation to try to help him with his quest. None of them seem to have an answer to his question though.

Siddhartha left these various gurus and joined in with a group of ascetics. Asceticism is a path in which you deprive the body in order to conquer and control the mind. He practiced asceticism fiercely, almost to the point of death. At that point he realized that giving in to pleasure, as he did when he was a prince, nor trying to punish the body, was the proper path to finding the answer. So he sat down and meditated under a pi-pal tree. During this meditation he discovered the root of all suffering and the path to how to overcome suffering and became enlightened.

After his enlightenment he meets up with his ascetic friends, who by now were critical of him for leaving the path of asceticism. But he explains to them what he had discovered and they were instantly converted. From there The Buddha taught for 45 years until his death at 85 converting many to his teachings and now Buddhism is the 4th largest religion in the world.

As to why he is called Buddha, Buddha translates to "enlightened" or "awakened" one. Buddha described enlightenment as awakening and him as being Awake. Therefore we call him Buddha.