Birth name

The practice most widely followed is that a child is named on the seventh day after birth, alongside the aqiqah — the sacrifice and the shaving of the head. Naming earlier is also reported and is not held to be wrong; the seventh day is the common practice rather than a universal requirement.

Names of the prophets are favoured, as are the names formed with ʿAbd — servant of — followed by one of the names of God: ʿAbdullah, ʿAbd al-Rahman. The corresponding prohibition is firm and worth stating plainly: a name that makes someone the servant of anything other than God is not used.

Meaning is the usual criterion. A name is chosen because of what it means and what it carries, and names with poor or boastful meanings are changed — there are well-known reports of the Prophet renaming people on exactly that ground.

Astrology? None. There is no astrological element in Islamic naming, and this page does not suggest one. The abjad or jummal value of a name is a folk practice found in some communities, not a religious ruling — the site's own abjad calculator is offered as arithmetic, not as guidance.

The abjad value of a name, letter by letter →

In most traditions the name is given or confirmed at baptism. In Catholic and Orthodox practice it is common for the name to be that of a saint, who is then the child's patron; Orthodox families often name for the saint whose feast falls near the birth or the baptism, and the name day is kept alongside — sometimes instead of — the birthday.

Godparents are named at the same rite and their role is bound to it. Protestant practice varies widely: many churches keep the baptismal naming without the saint, and others treat the choice as entirely the parents'.

Astrology? None, and the tradition is explicit about it. The calendar that matters here is the calendar of saints, which is a liturgical cycle rather than an astronomical one.

Naamkaran is one of the samskaras, the rites of passage, and is usually performed on the eleventh or twelfth day after birth, though the day varies by community. The name is often announced in the child's ear by the father or the officiating priest.

Families frequently give more than one name: the rashi or nakshatra name, chosen for the syllable below and sometimes kept private, and the name the child is actually called. A family deity's name, or a grandparent's, is common as one of them.

Astrology? This is the one tradition of the five in which astrology genuinely decides something. The Moon's position at the moment of birth fixes a nakshatra and a pada, and the pada carries a syllable that the name is meant to begin with. That is what the tool above computes.

Compute the syllable →

A boy is named at the brit milah on the eighth day. A girl is traditionally named when her father is called to the Torah, commonly on the first Shabbat after the birth; many communities now hold a dedicated naming ceremony, a zeved habat or simchat bat.

The Hebrew name is given as the name followed by ben or bat and the parent's name, and it is the name used in religious contexts — called to the Torah, in the ketubah, in prayers for the sick.

Whom a child is named for splits along a clear line. Ashkenazi practice is to name after a relative who has died; Sephardi and Mizrahi practice commonly honours a living relative, often a grandparent. Both are long-standing; neither is a deviation from the other.

Astrology? None. The timing is fixed by the eighth day and by the Torah reading cycle, not by the sky.

There is no universal Buddhist naming ceremony, because Buddhism does not prescribe one. What exists is local: in Thailand and Sri Lanka a monk is often asked for an auspicious name; in Tibetan communities a name may be requested from a lama and frequently includes an element of the day or of a teacher's name.

The naming that is properly Buddhist rather than cultural happens at ordination, when a monk or nun receives a Pali or Sanskrit Dhamma name and the lay name is set aside. That is a change of life rather than a christening.

Burmese practice is the one with a system: the day of the week a child was born on determines which letters the name may begin with, under an eight-day week that splits Wednesday in two. It is a Burmese convention, widespread among Buddhists there, rather than a Buddhist doctrine — and the distinction matters.

Astrology? Only where local custom brings it in, which is not everywhere and is not doctrinal. Naming a monk at ordination has nothing to do with a chart.