Dale Gombert wrote:

There must be dozens of books on the topic, but another outstanding
reference is "Star Names: Their Meaning and Lore" by Richard Hinckley
Allen.

Brian Tung responded:

It's a fun little read (or a fun big read, I suppose), but there are
apparently all sorts of errors in it, at least in the origins of the
star names.

Richard Hinkley Allen was a typical gifted dilettante of his times. His
knowledge of the Classics (Greek and Roman) was first-hand and pretty
reliable, but his discussion of non-Western traditions is drawn from
second-hand and third-hand sources which he did not understand
very well, and which were themselves infused with hazy nineteenth-
century romanticism. So everything that he says about non-Western
astronomy -- including, critically, the Arab tradition that gave birth
to
modern European astronomy -- has to be taken with many grains of
salt. Having said that, Allen's enthusiasm is infectious, and the fact
that he even tried to include non-Western cultures is laudable.

One might also view Allen as the central myth-maker of modern
star-lore. His pronouncements are found throughout discussions
of star lore, from Burnham to Ridpath, and even in writings by
Arabic and Indian scholars who ought to know better. It's too bad
that so many of them are demonstrably incorrect, while others
that are based on a long chain of tenuous speculation are simply
accepted as fact.

The central myth that has been perpetrated by people from Allen
to H.A. Rey is that they are uncovering a forgotten tradition. Back
in the good old days, goes this story, even the most ignorant
peasant knew hundreds of stars by name, and had a rich store
of lore about each one. Actually, there's not the slightest reason
to believe that this is true. On the contrary, star lore is probably
more popular today than it ever was before -- among the Greeeks,
among the native Americans, among the ancient Mesopotamians.
It's unlikely that the average peasant could have identified the
average second-magnitude star if you had pointed it out to him,
let alone given it a name or told you what constellation it was in.

- Tony Flanders