Namkaran Muhurat and Name Letters by Nakshatra: All 108 Syllables

Namkaran (नामकरण), the naming of a child, is the samskara families plan most and need a muhurat for least. On its own day it needs none; what the family really looks for is the first letter of the name, which the books take from the Moon's nakshatra at the birth.

This guide covers both. It explains when a naming needs a muhurat and when it does not, gives all 108 name syllables with a worked example, explains why printed tables sometimes differ, and sets out the rules for a later naming.

When Is Namkaran Done?

Muhurta Chintamani's Samskara prakarana puts the naming on the 11th or the 12th day of life (the birth day counted as the 1st). The Manusmriti gives the 10th or the 12th, and B.V. Raman's Muhurtha the 10th, 12th or 16th. Many families name the child on the day the birth's impurity period (sutak) ends, which differs from family to family; that day is the family's own.

On that prescribed day no muhurat is needed. Muhurta Chintamani says so, and published calendars repeat it. The days are usually counted with the birth day as the first, so a child born on 12 January 2027 has its 11th day on 22 January and its 12th on 23 January. Neither date needs to be on a muhurat list.

A muhurat matters when the naming is done later — after a hospital stay, a journey, or simply when the family can gather. The rest of this guide's rules are for that case.

The Rules for a Later Naming

Muhurta Chintamani's Samskara prakarana, as published calendars apply it:

• Tithi: Pratipada, Dwitiya, Tritiya, Panchami, Saptami, Dashami, Ekadashi, Dwadashi or Trayodashi of either half — the nine published calendars list. The book asks only for no parva and no rikta tithi, which would also allow Shashthi.
• Weekday: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday.
• Nakshatra: the fixed, soft, swift and movable stars — Rohini, the three Uttaras, Mrigashira, Chitra, Anuradha, Revati, Ashwini, Pushya, Hasta, Punarvasu, Swati, Shravana, Dhanishtha and Shatabhisha.
• The hour: the forenoon is best and midday middling, Brihaspati says, quoted in Muhurta Chintamani; the afternoon and the night are left out, so the lists end where Aparahna begins, three fifths into the daytime, as published calendars end a naming.
• The lagna: only the hours whose rising sign is not movable — never Mesha, Karka, Tula or Makara — with the 8th house empty and no malefic in the lagna or aspecting it, as published calendars apply it; they read the 8th by the seven grahas, and so does the calendar view, while the strict view counts Rahu and Ketu there too.
• The season: none in the calendar view — published calendars print a late naming in either half of the year and call Uttarayana advisable; the strict view keeps it to Uttarayana, as Kashyapa asks in the Piyushadhara commentary, and also leaves out the Sun's, Saturn's and Mars' signs rising.
• Never a kshaya tithi (one current at no sunrise at the place) and never the star's varjyam — its tyajya ghatis, four of the star's sixty parts after the count the book gives for it (Muhurta Chintamani, Vivaha prakarana).
• Not weighed: the combustion of Venus or Jupiter (the commentary), and, by published calendars, Chaturmas and Holashtak.
• Closed: the day of a sankranti or an eclipse, by Garga's rule quoted in the same chapter — no auspicious act then, "even at its due time".

How the Name Letter Is Found

The zodiac's 360° holds 27 nakshatras of 13°20′ each, and each nakshatra four padas (quarters) of 3°20′. Each of the 108 padas has one syllable, and the child's name traditionally begins with the syllable of the pada the Moon was in at the birth. The table is the shatapada chakra, "the wheel of a hundred feet": Jyotisharka's verses, quoted in the Piyushadhara commentary on Muhurta Chintamani's Samskara prakarana.

So the letter needs the birth nakshatra and its pada — and the pada needs the birth time. The Moon crosses one pada in about six hours on average, so two children born on the same day can have different letters. A kundli gives the nakshatra and pada at once: the free kundli shows them for any birth time and place.

The 108 Name Syllables

The four syllables of each nakshatra, pada 1 to 4, in English letters with the Devanagari:

English letters cannot always tell two Devanagari sounds apart — Purva Ashadha has both धा and ढा, written "Dha" — so read the Devanagari when in doubt.

A Worked Example: Four Children Born on One Day

Four children born at New Delhi on 12 January 2027, at four times of the day. The Moon is in Shatabhisha for most of the day and moves into Purva Bhadrapada late at night:

Four times, four letters: this is why the birth time matters more for the name than the date. All four children have their 11th day on 22 January 2027 and their 12th on 23 January, and a naming on either day needs no muhurat. If the family names them later, the rules above decide the day.

Where Name-Letter Tables Differ

Printed tables of the 108 syllables do not all agree. Comparing the verse with two widely used published tables, 88 of the 108 entries agree in all three. The differences are of three kinds:

• Vowel length and spelling. The verse writes Krittika's four as long vowels; most tables print अ ई उ ए, as here. A few entries differ by a short or a long vowel (वु or वू), or by the letter used for one sound.
• Abhijit. The same verse gives Abhijit, a 28th star between Uttara Ashadha and Shravana, its own four syllables: Ju, Je, Jo and Kha (जू जे जो खा). Some tables print them under Shravana. The 27-star table here keeps Shravana's own four from the verse.
• One or two real differences, such as Purva Phalguni's first pada (Mo in the verse, No in some tables) or Uttara Bhadrapada's last (Na, sometimes written with ञ). Where copies differ, the table here follows the majority reading.

B.V. Raman adds a rule of his own: an even number of letters in a boy's name and an odd number in a girl's. It is a separate custom, not part of the syllable table, and is not applied here.

The Dates for a Later Naming

The Namkaran Muhurat 2027 page gives each date of a later naming with its windows, nakshatra and tithi: at New Delhi, 19 days in the calendar view (2 in February, 2 in April, 3 in May, 1 in June, 3 in July, 2 in August, 3 in September, 2 in October and 1 in November) and none in the strict view. For your own city, the free muhurat finder lists them for up to three months. The times are for New Delhi in IST, computed with the Swiss Ephemeris and the Lahiri ayanamsa.

The calendar view was compared day for day with a widely used almanac's daily naming tool for the fortnight from 14 January 2027 at New Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata and 16 to 22 November 2026 and 11 chosen days from February to October 2027 at the same cities, 86 day pages in all: it published 11 days, on four dates, and the calendar view keeps all 11 and adds no day it does not publish. Where the hours differ, a rule is applied more strictly here — Rahu Kalam, Yamaganda and Gulika, which that almanac flags on its card but keeps, and on 1 October 2027 the first part of Chitra's varjyam, which Muhurta Chintamani starts a little before that almanac does. That almanac keeps no year list for a naming, so the comparison is a sample.

The personal namkaran muhurat at the end of this page reads the child's kundli: it gives the name syllables of every pada the birth Moon can have been in, and the naming days from the family's day on. For the next samskaras, see the Annaprashan muhurat guide with the Annaprashan Muhurat 2027 page, and the Upanayana (janeu) muhurat guide; the nakshatra guide describes each of the 27 stars.