Talk:List of proper names of stars

Merge with List of Arabic star names
No proposal yet, this list have to get etymologies from the Arabic star names list, and to that: added similar etymologies for the Roman, Geek and Practical Joke names. Said: Rursus ☻ 17:10, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I've removed the tag since it is ten years old with no comments and no work towards that goal. The Arabic names list right now is quite nice. Many of those names are not in use as proper names and many of the ones in this list are not derived from Arabic, so a merged list would be quite messy. Lithopsian (talk) 13:36, 27 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Looks like maybe the tag wasn't 10 years old, just this comment? Well its gone now, but if anyone is desperate for a whole lot of work then put it back. Lithopsian (talk) 13:37, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Buy a star?!
I don't wish to buy a star name like the other ones, but rather buy a star, namely the Sun! My purpose is of course to put a proper tax on each photon leaving the Sun, which is to be payed at the arrival to Earth. Said: Rursus ☻ 17:33, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Talking to yourself, are you? Do you think that is going to impress anyone? Said: Rursus ☻ 17:34, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

What is a genuine proper name?
I have been asking myself, how many stars do have proper names? Looking around Wikipedia and the internet, a typical answer would seem to be "more than 100, less than 200".

But an encyclopedic list of names of stars would need to do much more than this. Many stars have multiple names, and some names are applied to multiple stars. Some names are corrupted, i.e. many Arabic names are given nonsensical latinized sound-alikes.

This list should probably be organized by star, with a column listing historical proper names, each with a source as to where it is attested. The best approach will probably be to base the list on Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning, which is now in the public domain, and then expand it from there.

It needs to be pointed out that most Arabic names are actually just descriptions of asterisms, along the lines of "foot of the centaur", "tail of the swan", "the mane of the lion", etc. These aren't so much genuine given names of stars but prose descriptions of the layout of the constellations.

The older Greek names do the same, as in "the dog's tail". Some stars have a complicated history of multiple names, as Arcturus, or names of unknown etymology, as Canopus. But most of the "less than 200" proper names can simply be explained as descriptive of their asterisms. Perhaps a special focus of those stars that have actual proper names would be appropriate.

Since all of these stars are bright, it may also make sense to merge this list with list of brightest stars and expand the table there to give full information on each star's names. --dab (𒁳) 13:57, 3 October 2011 (UTC)


 * ok, so this list has 380 entries. I arranged it in a format that is potentially useful now; it will take some time to complete this, but eventually it could absorb all information from Arabic star names and List of brightest stars. There is no need to keep these lists separate, as by design they list more or less the same items (the 400 or so brightest stars). A single list of the 400 brightest stars with all basic information included will suffice. --dab (𒁳) 11:17, 4 October 2011 (UTC)


 * hp://www.astrostudio.org/500brightest.html might be of help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.76.106.32 (talk) 14:21, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

'Chara' named for both Alpha and Beta Canum Venaticorum?
I noticed that 'Chara' is named for both Alpha and Beta Canum Venaticorum. I think 'Chara' is exclusively Beta Canum Venaticorum unless there is some history behind this that I'm not aware of?


 * has Chara for Beta Canum Venaticorum only. I've changed it for now. C1614 (talk) 19:20, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Didn't read the entry properly: "Applied in Renaissance times from the Greek word [chara], "joy," that was used by Hevelius in 1690 to name the southern dog (marked by [alpha] and [beta] CVn) in his new constellation Canes Venatici." C1614 (talk) 19:25, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

What's a "Modern proper name"?
I see mostly Arabic names in the third column, and they're declared to be "Modern proper name". I see no such thing on other languages of this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.86.71.224 (talk) 03:04, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Whether the original poster of this question will ever come back and see the following answer, I can't tell, but I'll give it anyway. A "modern proper name" is a proper name which is in use today, as contrasted with names no longer used, mentioned in the "historical names" column. If you think they are mostly Arabic, then probably you looked only at the first few in the table, because among those first few most are Arabic, but if you look further down you will see that overall the Arabic names are in a minority. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 13:16, 28 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I think the point is that the form of the name is indeed modern (or perhaps early modern), even if it is based on medieval Arabic. Thus Acamar is modern, and not equal to ākhir an-nahr, which would be the medieval Arabic name. If you call the star "Acamar", you are using a modern name, only if you actually call it ākhir an-nahr are you using a "traditional" or "Arabic" name. --dab (𒁳) 05:58, 8 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Some of the names have existed before IAU started its list. Why those are not marked to separate from the ones which were adapted by IAU? If they are I don't see it. 85.76.49.68 (talk) 02:03, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

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Edit history under a different article name
This information used to be at Lists of stars by constellation, before it was divvied up into the various star articles and then recreated here. There may still be some useful info in the history,

— kwami (talk) 22:23, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Kunitzsch & Smart not RS for pronunciations of star names
K&S is a great source for etymologies and for correcting some of the errors in Allen. But going through it, I'm finding many of their claims (or are they proposals?) about pronunciations to be dubious or untenable. Many are taken directly from Davis (1944), but sometimes there are critical copy errors such as dropped diacritics. Some of the pronunciations in square brackets violate English phonotactics. And in the intro, they say that "erroneous vowels ... are usually made long or short so as to 'best conform' to a long or short sound in the different, original Arabic vowel." In other words, they've created ad hoc blended forms. But Latinized Greek and Arabic vowels do not work this way in English: English vowels are long or short depending on which syllable they're in, and whether that syllable is stressed and open or closed. It's English stress that depends on the length of the vowel in Latin. (Because English copies Latin stress placement, and Latin stress is dependent on vowel length.) E.g., a long Latin vowel in a stressed antepenultimate syllable generally becomes a stressed short vowel in English, with the exception of – see trisyllabic laxing. So, if the Latin remained true to the vowel length of the Arabic – long vowels were generally not written, so in most cases the distinction was probably lost – but even if we reconstruct it as K&S suggest, it would only affect the placement of stress in English, not directly dictate whether the English vowel was long or short. Also, an awful lot of stressed 'a' vowels are given the value in English. English-speakers often vary in whether they pronounce an 'a' as or  (famously in the word 'bath', which is the type-word for this lexical set), but not ! These values typically correspond to $\langleȧ\rangle$ in Davis. I don't see that Davis ever defines his symbols, but even if he intended $\langleȧ\rangle$ to be rather than the  vowel, which would make more sense, it would seem K&S adopted that value uncritically and despite it being contrary to actual usage. (And despite it being further from their rendition of the Arabic as well in many cases.) In many cases K&S are presumably familiar with the usual English pronunciation of a traditional star name, but they don't say when this is the case, when instead they copied another source uncritically, and when they just made it up. So, I don't think we can say that a name is pronounced a certain way just because K&S say so. Unfortunately. It would've been so much easier if they'd done all the work! — kwami (talk) 21:36, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Thusia and Hilasmus fail verification
For Gamma and Delta Lupi. Not in the IAU doc. Should we delete? — kwami (talk) 07:41, 27 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Thusia and Hilasmus... must be unofficial names I guess. Anyway, sounds interesting. I think I add them into my alphabetic list of official and unofficial names and nicknames of astronomical objects beyond the solar system. DannyCaes (talk) 15:13, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Missing info from after 2018
While the table in the article has up-to-date info on all the IAU's star names, the info in the rest of the article isn't up to date. It mentions two times that "As of August 2018, the list included a total of 336 proper names of stars." I looked at the IAU list (https://www.iau.org/public/themes/naming_stars/), and it seems there are 451 named stars from up to April 2022. I can't add the new info myself at the moment, but I wanted to bring it up in case someone else can. Ciel-bell (talk) 23:18, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Excised content
"Names needing verification" shouldn't be in the list. Arguably, any names not approved by the IAU shouldn't be in the list. SevenSpheres (talk) 22:01, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Ancient Greek names
These are the current pages in Category:Stars named from the Ancient Greek language before deletion per Categories_for_discussion/Log/2023_May_18, in case a list would be useful somewhere. – Fayenatic  L ondon 22:11, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Alcyone (star)
 * Antares
 * Arcturus
 * Atlas (star)
 * Betelgeuse
 * Canopus
 * Celaeno (star)
 * Electra (star)
 * Maia (star)
 * Merope (star)
 * Pleione (star)
 * Procyon
 * Sirius
 * Sterope (star)