On the names of newspapers: Courier and Courant

These are both from the Latin, currere, to run. 'Courier' is a Middle English word meaning a person sent to run with a message. 'Courant' is a heraldic term for something represented as running, e.g. Lion courant. It might also be a pun on on 'current'.

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On the names of newspapers: Comet

A comet is a loose bundle of ice and dust and rocks, a few kilometers across, that oribits the Sun. When it's close enough to the Sun, a coma, or atmosphere, tails out behind it.

The word comes from the Greek, komē, meaning head hair, and an old name for a comet was 'hairy star'. This reflects the tail streaming out behind like the hair of a runner.

Some comets appear regularly (although not a weekly or daily basis) and for some cultures, they forewarn of exciting, terrible and unusual happenings. Comets are thought to have delivered much of the Earth's water, and (this is controversial) to have seeded the planet with life.

So we have the idea of a regular phenomenon that forewarns or announces interesting happenings, and which might (according to some) bring life to a community.

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On the names of newspapers: Express

This is from the Latin 'ex' (out) and 'premo, pressi, pressum' (to press) -- referring to an olive oil press, rather than a printing press, although of course, a newspaper, like olive oil, comes out of the press.

'Going very fast' is another meaning. This is from 'express train' -- a train that stops at few stations, so called because an old use of express to mean 'for special purpose'.

And express means to convey something in words. This calls the olive press to mind once more: imagine someone squeezing the essence from their thoughts. It can mean 'stated' (as opposed to 'implied'), as in 'It was my express wish that cats should not walk across the dinner table.'

On the names of newspapers: Gazette

This is a very official sounding word for a publication, and is used as a verb to mean 'put something in the official publication for an organisation'. This takes in the military meaning, 'to publish someone's appointment to a post'.

In the early 17th century, a gazetteer was a journalist, a strange new beast.

But what is a gazette really? It comes from the phrase gazeta de la novita -- a ha'pen'worth of news. A gazeta was a small (very small) Venetian coin of little value.