Names That Mean Star: 92 Starry Names for Girls and Boys

Names that mean star include Stella, Estelle, Estrella, Seren, Tara, Setareh, Najm, Yıldız and Hoshi, and this list of 92 starry names gives a checked origin and meaning for every one.

Names that mean star turn up in almost every language: Stella in Latin, Seren in Welsh, Setareh in Persian, Najm in Arabic, Hoshi in Japanese and Citlalli in Nahuatl all mean star. Others build on the word, like Hōkūlani (“heavenly star”) or Odtsetseg (“star flower”).

We grouped the names into girls, boys and gender-neutral names, mythology and literature, and morning star names, then added names that only possibly mean star, popular look-alikes with other meanings, character-based names from Japan, China and Korea, and short names, nicknames and sibling ideas.

Names That Mean Star at a Glance

Every name on this page was checked against its own Behind the Name entry in October 2026. We list a name as a star name only when that entry says “star” (or a star phrase such as “morning star” or “heavenly star”) in its meaning. Where the reference calls a link possible, probable or uncertain, we say so too.

Names that mean star come in three kinds. Some are simply the word for star in a language: Stella in Latin, Seren in Welsh, Bituin in Tagalog, Naledi in Tswana. Others build a small picture around it, like Odtsetseg (“star flower”), Hōkūlani (“heavenly star”) or Anangikwe (“star woman”). A third group comes from myth and literature, where a star word became the name of a goddess, a hero or a fictional elf.

This page sticks to names whose meaning is star. If you want the names of actual stars, planets and constellations, our space names guide covers those in depth. Here is where the star word turns up in each language family:

Girl Names That Mean Star

These girl names that mean star are listed as feminine on Behind the Name. The Latin family (Stella, Estelle, Estrella) is the most familiar in the United States, but the list runs from Welsh and Cornish to Kazakh, Tagalog and Nahuatl.

Stella has a more recent start than most parents expect. The reference says the 16th-century English poet Philip Sidney created it for the subject of his sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella, and that it was not commonly used as a given name until the 19th century. Estelle took a different road: it comes from an Old French name, was rare in the English-speaking world in the Middle Ages, and was revived in the 19th century, perhaps helped by Estella in Great Expectations.

The Slavic names give you a lot of choice. Danica means “morning star, Venus” and appears in Slavic folklore as the personification of the morning star; Denitsa is its Bulgarian form, and Danika is a modern English variant. Zornitsa is Bulgarian for “morning star”, while Zoryana comes from the Ukrainian word for “dawn, star”. Zvjezdana, Zvezdana and Dzvezda are the Croatian, Serbian and Macedonian versions of the plain word.

Several names are very young. Seren is a recently created Welsh name, Astra has only been used rarely since the 20th century, and Csilla was invented by the Hungarian author András Dugonics for a novel published in 1803 before poets made it popular. If a long pedigree matters to you, look at Esther in the section below or the mythological names further down.

Hōkūlani, the Hawaiian “heavenly star”, pairs well with the names in our Hawaiian girl names list. For more Latin-rooted classics, our names that mean light guide is a natural next stop.

Boy Names That Mean Star

Boy names that mean star are rarer than girl names in most naming references, and the list below shows it. Each name is listed as masculine on Behind the Name and has star in its meaning.

Najm is the simplest choice here: it is the Arabic word for star, and Najm ad-Din extends it to “star of the faith”. Ylli, from the Albanian yll, is short and easy to say in English, and its feminine form Yllka appears in the girls’ table. Itri, the Tamazight word for star, is another short option.

Dhruva is a lovely example of a name with a double meaning. In Sanskrit it means “fixed, immovable, firm, stable”, and it also refers to the North Star. In Hindu mythology Dhruva is a devotee of Vishnu who became the North Star. Dhruv is its modern Hindi and Nepali form.

Ahtahkakoop (“star blanket”) and Kisecawchuck (“day star”) are the names of 19th-century Plains Cree chiefs, so they belong to real people and a living culture. If you are not Cree, treat them as names to learn about rather than names to borrow. Seong-jin is a Korean name whose star meaning depends on the hanja, which we explain in the section on character-based names.

Gender-Neutral Names That Mean Star

Behind the Name lists each of these as both masculine and feminine, in the order shown. Our gender neutral names guide has many more options that work for any child.

Izar (Basque) and Whetū (Māori) both simply mean star and are short enough to pair with almost any surname. Lucero is a warm Spanish choice that means “light source, bright star, morning star”; the reference notes it is most common in Mexico and Colombia. Aster is the botanical option: it is the name of a flower, and the flower was named from the Greek word for star.

Dara (2) is the Khmer word for star, which comes from Sanskrit tara. It is a separate entry from other names spelled Dara that have different meanings, so if you choose it for its star meaning, it helps to say so when relatives ask.

Akhtar comes from the Persian word for star and is used in Urdu and Bengali for both boys and girls. Nkanyezi (Zulu), Nthanda (Tumbuka) and Ulloriaq (Greenlandic) each mean star in their own languages, and they are good examples of how one simple idea shows up in naming traditions across Africa and the Arctic. Xing is the most flexible on paper: written 星 it means “star, planet”, but the same sound can be written with characters that mean something quite different, so the written form decides.

If you are torn between a boy name and a girl name before your baby arrives, a gender-neutral star name lets you settle the meaning first and the gender later. Izar, Whetū and Akhtar are short and work in many languages; Lucero and Aster feel a little more decorative.

Star Names From Mythology and Literature

Many stories named their characters after the stars. The figures below come from Greek and Gaulish myth and from literature. Mythological names belong to real traditions, so read the story before you choose one.

Greek gives you a whole star family built on aster: Astraea, Asteria, Asterion and Asterius. Astraea is the most storied: the reference describes her as a goddess of justice and innocence who left the earth when wickedness took root and became the constellation Virgo. Asterius was also borne by a few early saints, so it has a history outside myth.

Two names in the girls’ table belong here too. Astghik is the Armenian goddess of love and water, and Tara is a Hindu astral goddess who also appears in the Ramayana; in Buddhist belief Tara is a bodhisattva associated with salvation and protection. Both are still used as everyday names.

Tolkien fans have two options. Elanor means “star sun” in Sindarin, the elvish language Tolkien invented, and Elrond means “star dome”. Astrophel is a deeper cut: Philip Sidney coined it, probably as “star lover”, for the same sonnets that gave us Stella, so the two make a literary pair.

Morning Star and Evening Star Names

The planet Venus is traditionally called the morning star or the evening star, depending on when it appears in the sky. Many star names actually mean “morning star”, and the reference often adds “Venus” to the meaning. These names from the tables above carry that gloss:

• Danica, Denitsa and Danika: “morning star, Venus” (Slavic).
• Zornitsa: “morning star” in Bulgarian.
• Dalva: from Portuguese estrela d’alva, “morning star, Venus”.
• Wâpanacâhkos: “morning star, Venus” in Cree.
• Ojigkwanong: “morning star” in Algonquin.
• Lucero: “light source, bright star, morning star” in Spanish.
• Kisecawchuck: “day star” in Cree.

A few other names are tied to the morning or evening star but do not mean “star” in their entries. Hesperos means “evening” and was the Greek personification of the Evening Star, Vesper is its Latin cognate, Tariq means “visitor, knocker at the door” but is also the Arabic name of the morning star, and Zohreh is the Persian word for the planet Venus. You will find them in the look-alike table below. If you love the morning-star idea, choose from the list above for a name whose meaning says so directly, or pick one of these if the story matters more than the literal meaning. For names of the moon and night sky, see our names that mean moon list.

Names That Might Mean Star: Esther, Ester and Hester

Esther appears on almost every list of names that mean star, but the reference is careful. It says the Hebrew name possibly means “star” in Persian, and that it could instead come from the name of the goddess Ishtar, whose own name comes from a root that possibly relates to the Evening Star. So Esther has a likely star connection, not a certain one.

Esther has deep roots: the Book of Esther tells of the Jewish queen of Persia who saved her people, and the name has been used in the English-speaking world since the Protestant Reformation. Ester is the spelling used in many European languages and in modern Hebrew, and Hester is the Latin form. Our biblical girl names guide has more names from the Hebrew Bible.

Star Names That Don’t Mean Star (and Other Look-Alikes)

Some of the best-known “star” names are names of stars, not names that mean star. Others simply sound starry. Here is what their own entries say:

Sirius and Vega are real stars, but their names mean “burning” and “the swooping (eagle)”. Stellan looks like Stella, yet its meaning is unknown. Sterling is the most surprising: it is a Scots surname from the city of Stirling, and it can also nod to the word sterling (“excellent”), which goes back to Old English for “little star” because of an emblem on some Norman coins. Astrid, a Scandinavian classic, looks as if it might share a root with Astra, but its entry traces it to an Old Norse name with no star meaning at all. None of this makes these names worse choices; it just means they are not names that mean star. Star names, planet names and constellation names have their own home in the space names guide linked at the top of this page.

Japanese, Chinese and Korean Star Names: Why the Characters Matter

In Japanese, Chinese and Korean names, the meaning comes from the written character a family chooses, not from the sound alone. The same character, 星, means star in all three, but it is read differently in each language:

• 星 (hoshi) in Japanese: used in Hoshi and Hoshiko. Both names can also be written with other kanji that sound the same.
• 星 (xīng) in Chinese: one way to write Xing. The same sound can be written 兴, “rise, prosper”, which has nothing to do with stars.
• 星 (seong) in Korean: one possible hanja for the first syllable of Seong-jin. Another common choice, 成, means “completed, finished, succeeded”.

If you choose one of these names for its star meaning, write the character down when you record the name and share it with family, so the meaning travels with the name. The same care applies to any name written in characters: ask a native speaker how the full name reads.

Short Star Names, Nicknames and Sibling Ideas

Short names. Many names that mean star have five letters or fewer: Star, Starr, Tara, Dara, Izar, Itri, Ylli, Najm, Xing, Hoshi, Astra, Aster, Seren, Stela, Estel, Dalva, Csilla and Whetū. They balance a long surname nicely, and they make strong middle names.

Nickname ideas. These are informal ideas, not forms listed in the reference: Star from Starla, Stella as a short form for Estella, or Astra as a shorter take on Astraea. Always check that a nickname does not carry a meaning you did not intend.

Sibling and twin sets. A few pairings with built-in logic: Stella and Astra (Latin and Greek roots), Seren and Steren (Welsh and Cornish “star”), Najm and Najma (the Arabic masculine and feminine forms), Ylli and Yllka (Albanian), or Danica and Zornitsa for two morning-star names. To mix the whole sky, pair a star name with a name from our names that mean sun or names that mean fire lists.

How to Choose a Name That Means Star

• Decide how literal you want it: Stella, Seren, Najm and Izar simply mean star. Hōkūlani, Odtsetseg and Najm ad-Din are compounds. Esther only possibly means star, and Sirius or Vega are star names with other meanings.
• Read the whole entry: some names have two possible roots (Maristela), some meanings depend on the written character (Hoshi, Xing), and some are recent creations (Seren, Csilla).
• Respect the source culture: names such as Ahtahkakoop, Kisecawchuck and Wâpanacâhkos come from Cree, and Tara and Astghik are goddesses in living or historic traditions. Learn the story and how the name is used today.
• Say it with your surname: Stella and Estrella flow softly; Najm and Ylli are crisp and short. Try each with your last name and a middle name, out loud.
• Plan for spelling: names like Tähti, Yıldız, Jūldyz, Hōkūlani and Whetū carry special letters. U.S. paperwork does not always carry accents or special characters, so decide early how you will write the name.
• Think about popularity: none of the names on this page appear in the Social Security Administration’s top 10 lists for babies born in 2025, so any of them will stand out a little.
• Balance first and middle names: a short star name works well with a longer middle name, and a star name makes a bright middle choice too. Our middle names guide covers rhythm and flow.

Related Betteroo Guides

• Space Names
• Names That Mean Moon
• Names That Mean Sun
• Names That Mean Light
• Hawaiian Boy Names
• Gender Neutral Names

The Bottom Line

Names that mean star range from the familiar Stella, Estelle and Estrella to Seren, Tara, Najm, Yıldız, Hoshi and Citlalli. Our list of 92 names keeps only names whose own entries say star (or a star phrase such as morning star), adds the Esther family with an honest “possibly”, and flags look-alikes such as Sirius, Vega, Stellan and Sterling whose meanings are different. Shortlist three to five, read each entry, and say each one out loud for a week.

Once your little star arrives, sleep becomes the next big project. Our newborn sleep schedule week by week is a gentle place to start.

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