The 12 rashis, and what each is called in English

Moon sign, not sun sign

The word rashi usually means the moon sign — the sign the Moon occupied at birth. It is the one a pandit works from at a namkaran, and it is why the nakshatra and the rashi are two readings of the same fact: the Moon's longitude fixes the star, and the star's position fixes the sign.

The English name in the second column is the constellation the sign is named after, not an equivalent reading. Indian astrology measures on the sidereal zodiac, anchored to the fixed stars; Western astrology measures on the tropical zodiac, anchored to the equinox. The two were aligned roughly seventeen centuries ago and have separated by about twenty-four degrees since, which is enough to move most people one sign. Somebody who is Vrishabha here is often Gemini in a magazine column, and neither is a mistake — they are answers to different questions.

These are traditional readings, offered as cultural reference. A chart cast from the actual birth details is the authority, and a name is not made better or worse by which sign it points at.

How a sign is worked out from a name here

The chakra is a table of 108 syllables. We take the name's opening sound, match it by longest prefix — “Chha” before “Cha” before “Ch” — and read off the pada, the star and the sign that syllable belongs to. Long vowels are folded onto short ones first, so Aarav and Arav land in the same place. That is exactly the lookup the live rashi tile runs, and it is why a name listed under a sign here reads the same on its own name page.

What it cannot do is tell you a child's sign. Only the birth details can, because only they say where the Moon was.

Questions families ask

Is a rashi the same as a star sign?

They share the twelve names and very little else. A rashi in Indian astrology is read from the Moon and measured on the sidereal zodiac, which is tied to the stars; a Western sun sign is read from the Sun and measured on the tropical zodiac, which is tied to the equinox. The two frames have drifted about twenty-four degrees apart, so the sign in the bracket is the constellation the Indian sign shares its name with, not a translation of one reading into the other. Most people's rashi and their sun sign are different signs.

How can a name have a rashi at all?

Through the Avakahada chakra. Each of the 108 pada syllables belongs to a moon sign, so a name's opening sound points back at one. That is a reverse lookup and this site says so on every page that uses it: traditionally the chart comes first and the syllable is derived from it, not the other way round. What the lookup is genuinely good for is checking a name you already like against a syllable you were already given.

How many syllables does each sign have?

9. Each sign takes two and a quarter nakshatras — nine padas of 3°20′ each, which comes to the 30°00′ of a sign. That is why some stars appear under two signs in the table above: the boundary falls partway through them.

Why does a name sometimes appear under two signs?

Because a few syllables sit under more than one pada in the chakra, and where they do we list every match rather than choosing one. The live check behaves the same way. It is also why a name page can name two possible stars.