The name “Olympus Mons” means “Mt. Olympus” in Latin, but surprisingly, the name wasn’t applied directly from the Greek Mt. Olympus. It comes to us in a slightly more roundabout way. The late 19th/early 20th century astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli first noticed a feature in this area – a bright spot that remained present even during global dust storms. Even though he assumed it was a high altitude feature, he couldn’t be sure. He named it "Nix Olympica", meaning "Olympic snows". When it was confirmed to be a mountain by the Mariner 9 mission, scientists renamed it to Olympus Mons.

Olympus Mons is a hot spot volcano, much like the ones found in Hawaii. However, the size of volcanoes in Hawaii are limited by plate tectonics. The motion of the Pacific plate removes the Hawaiian volcanoes from the hot spots that formed them within a few million years. But Mars doesn't have plate tectonics. Instead, the volcanoes that form over hot spots remain in place, lava flows piling atop one another to the peaks ever higher.

In myth Mt. Olympus was the home and seat of power for the gods, making it an important site in Greek society. In much the same way, Olympus Mons rules over the surrounding landscape and exerts visible influence on its surroundings. A large region of terrain that looks like crumpled aluminum foil surrounds the mountain. This terrain, called the Olympus Mons aureole, was probably formed as the huge landslides that formed the scarps around the base of the mountain spread out around the surrounding plains. Some of the aureole has been buried by subsequent lava flows, mostly on the eastern side of the mountain. The largest area of this terrain was named Lycus Sulci, while portions isolated by lava flows received their own names.