Nine padas of the Avakahada chakra fall in Karka, the moon sign the Western zodiac calls Cancer. They come from Punarvasu, Pushya and Ashlesha, and between them they give 9 sounds a name may begin with.
Below: every one of those syllables with the nakshatra and pada it belongs to, and the 27 names in our corpus that begin with them — each written in Devanagari and reduced to its Chaldean root number.
One per pada. A pandit reads the pada from the birth chart and hands the family the sound — this is the whole set for the rashi.
A rashi spans 30° and a nakshatra 13°20′, so the two never divide evenly: every rashi is exactly two and a quarter nakshatras.
| Nakshatra | Pada | Syllable | Names in our corpus |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🏹 Punarvasu | 4 | Hi | 4 |
| 🪷 Pushya | 1 | Hu | 0 |
| 🪷 Pushya | 2 | He | 3 |
| 🪷 Pushya | 3 | Ho | 0 |
| 🪷 Pushya | 4 | Da | 1 |
| 🐍 Ashlesha | 1 | Di | 11 |
| 🐍 Ashlesha | 2 | Du | 2 |
| 🐍 Ashlesha | 3 | De | 4 |
| 🐍 Ashlesha | 4 | Do | 2 |
Traditionally this table runs the other way: the janam kundli gives the birth star, the birth star gives the syllable, and the syllable gives the name. The birth chart is the authority, not the name. We show the reverse lookup for reference.
Devanagari from our transliteration engine; the root number is the Chaldean reduction of the spelling shown.
| Name | Devanagari | Syllable | Chaldean root | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Danish | दनिश | Da | 1 ☉ | |
| Deepa | दीपा | Di | 5 ☿ | |
| Deepak | दीपक | Di | 7 ♆ | lamp, light |
| Deepika | दीपिका | Di | 8 ♄ | light, lamp |
| Deepu | दीपु | Di | 1 ☉ | |
| Dev | देव | De | 6 ♀ | deity, god, deva |
| Devansh | देवंश | De | 2 ☽ | part of God |
| Devender | देवेंदेर | De | 9 ♂ | |
| Devi | देवी | De | 7 ♆ | female deity, goddess |
| Diksha | दीक्षा | Di | 7 ♆ | initiation, consecration |
| Dilip | दिलिप | Di | 8 ♄ | |
| Dilshad | दिल्शद | Di | 3 ♃ | |
| Dimpal | दिंपल | Di | 3 ♃ | |
| Dinesh | दिनेश | Di | 5 ☿ | the sun |
| Divya | दिव्या | Di | 4 ♅ | divine, celestial, heavenly |
| Diya | दिया | Di | 7 ♆ | a lamp; light |
| Doli | डोली | Do | 6 ♀ | small litter, dooly |
| Dolly | दोल्ल्य | Do | 9 ♂ | |
| Durga | दुर्गा | Du | 7 ♆ | Durga, the goddess of war, strength, and protection |
| Durgesh | दुर्गेश | Du | 1 ☉ | |
| Heena | हीना | Hi | 3 ♃ | |
| Hema | हेमा | He | 6 ♀ | |
| Hemant | हेमंत | He | 6 ♀ | winter, cold season |
| Hemlata | हेम्लता | He | 5 ☿ | |
| Himanshi | हिमंशि | Hi | 7 ♆ | |
| Himanshu | हिमांशु | Hi | 3 ♃ | moon |
| Hina | हिना | Hi | 3 ♃ |
A blank meaning is a meaning we have not verified. We would rather leave the cell empty than fill it with a plausible guess.
Every name above reduced by the Chaldean method — how Karka actually distributes, counted rather than asserted.
| Root | Ruling planet | Names | Fields traditionally favoured |
|---|---|---|---|
| Root 7 | ♆ Neptune | 6 | Research, Spirituality, Independent consulting |
| Root 3 | ♃ Jupiter | 5 | Education, Publishing, Wisdom-focused brands |
| Root 6 | ♀ Venus | 4 | Luxury, Fashion, Beauty |
| Root 1 | ☉ Sun | 3 | Leadership, Politics, Entrepreneurship |
| Root 5 | ☿ Mercury | 3 | Media, SaaS / Tech, Communication |
| Root 8 | ♄ Saturn | 2 | Banking, Insurance, Real estate |
| Root 9 | ♂ Mars | 2 | Defence, Sports, Surgery |
| Root 2 | ☽ Moon | 1 | Hospitality, Diplomacy, Wellness |
| Root 4 | ♅ Uranus | 1 | Construction, Engineering, Manufacturing |
Punarvasu (pada 4), Pushya (all four padas) and Ashlesha (all four padas). A rashi spans 30° and a nakshatra 13°20′, so every rashi works out to two and a quarter nakshatras — nine padas in all.
By the Avakahada chakra: Hi, Hu, He, Ho, Da, Di, Du, De and Do. All 9 belong to the rashi; the pada the child was actually born in narrows it to a single sound, and that comes from the birth chart, not from this list.
They name the same 30° of the zodiac, and Karka is normally translated as Cancer. They are not interchangeable in practice. Rashi in the Indian tradition is the Moon's sign measured against the fixed stars (Lahiri ayanamsa); a Western sun sign is the Sun's position measured against the equinox. The two zodiacs currently sit about 24.2° apart, so a baby who is Cancer by the newspaper column is very often not Karka rashi at all.
No — the birth chart does. The chakra runs the other way: a pandit reads the Moon's nakshatra and pada from the janam kundli and hands the family a syllable to start the name with. Read in reverse, as this page reads it, a syllable tells you which star the sound belongs to and nothing about your child.
It is a tradition, not a rule. Plenty of families take the syllable as a shortlist and plenty choose the name they love regardless; both are ordinary. Where it does matter is the namkaran ceremony, which is why the sound usually comes from the pandit before the shortlist is drawn up.
Enter the date of birth and we compute the Moon's actual nakshatra and pada, instead of reading it backwards from the name.
Check a nameThe 3 nakshatras that fall in Karka
The other rashis — Mithuna before it, Simha after it in the zodiac
The root numbers these names carry