Arabic calls the Pleiades al-Thurayya, and it also calls them simply al-Najm, the star, as though the definite article settled which one. That is a strong statement about a small faint cluster, and it reflects the cluster's position at the centre of the anwa, the rain-star calendar of pre-Islamic Arabia.
The name is usually derived from a root meaning wealth or abundance, which fits an object made of more points than a person can count. Six are easy, seven is the traditional number, and a very sharp eye under a dark sky gets more.
Its setting and rising divided the year. The period after its heliacal setting was one of expected rain, and the agricultural and pastoral schedule of the peninsula was pegged to it. Poetry uses it constantly, both as a time marker and as an image of something high, bright and out of reach.
The same cluster carries this weight almost everywhere. It opens the Maori year as Matariki, it is the rattle of a snake to the Maya, it is a hen and chicks across Europe, and it is the sisters in Australia and in Greece alike. For an object that is not bright, is not large and contains no first-magnitude star, the Pleiades have more sky lore attached to them than anything except the sun and the moon.