The names that are the word for moon

This meaning divides cleanly in two, and almost every list online mixes the halves. On one side are names that are simply the word for the moon in some language. On the other are names of goddesses associated with the moon, whose own names mean something else. Both are worth having. Only the first group can honestly be described as meaning moon.

Name	Language	The word behind it
Luna	Latin	luna, the moon; also the Roman personification of it
Selene	Greek	selene, the moon; the Greek goddess is named after the object, not the other way round
Qamar	Arabic	qamar, the moon; the title of the 54th chapter of the Quran
Hilal	Arabic and Turkish	hilal, the crescent moon
Badr	Arabic	badr, the full moon
Mahtab	Persian	mah moon + tab shining: moonlight
Mahsa	Persian	"Like the moon"
Chandra	Sanskrit	chandra, the moon; also the deity of the moon
Indu	Sanskrit	A second Sanskrit word for the moon, literally a drop
Mani	Old Norse	mani, the moon, personified as a god in Norse myth

Turkish, which builds these transparently

Turkish ay is the moon and also the month, and it compounds freely. Ayla is the best known of the results: it means the halo of light around the moon, and it was 42nd in England and Wales in 2025 with 980 babies on the ONS figures released on 9 July 2026. That makes it by some distance the most-used moon name in Britain. Ayşe, despite the spelling, is not one of these — it is the Turkish form of the Arabic name Aisha, "alive". Aynur pairs ay with the Arabic nur, light. Aydin is "bright, enlightened".

There is a genuine complication with Ayla. A separate Hebrew name, Ayala or Ayla, means "doe" or is connected to a word for oak. English spelling collapses the two. A family using Ayla in Britain may mean either, and both are correct; what would not be correct is to present one meaning as the only one.

The goddesses, and what their names actually mean

Name	Association	What the name means
Diana	Roman goddess of the hunt, later identified with the moon	From a root meaning "divine, heavenly" — not moon
Artemis	Greek goddess later identified with the moon	Etymology genuinely unknown; possibly not Greek at all
Cynthia	An epithet of Artemis	"Of Mount Cynthus", her birthplace on Delos
Phoebe	An epithet of Artemis	"Bright, radiant" — light, not moon
Hina	A goddess across Polynesia, associated with the moon in Hawaiian tradition	A deity's name; treat with care rather than as a meaning

The Artemis and Diana cases are the most instructive. Both goddesses acquired the moon by absorbing an older lunar deity, Selene in Greek and Luna in Latin. The association is real and ancient; the etymology is unrelated. Phoebe is the trap inside the trap, because it is a real word with a real meaning that is close to but not the same as this one, and it was 14th in England and Wales in 2025 with 1,542 babies.

Japanese and Chinese

Japanese tsuki is the moon, and it appears in names such as Mizuki and Tsukiko. But Japanese names are written with characters, and the same sound can be written several different ways with completely different meanings: Mizuki can be "beautiful moon" or can contain no moon element at all, depending on the characters the family chose. We do not give a flat meaning for a Japanese name without knowing them. The same is true of Chinese names built on yue.

Names that are about the moon without meaning it

Some names belong on a moon-themed list without belonging in the tables above, and it is worth being clear about which is which. Esme, Stella and Aurora are night-sky adjacent rather than lunar. Marama is the Māori word for moon and is a real name in Aotearoa New Zealand, but it is not one to take casually from outside. Neoma is often glossed as "new moon"; the derivation from Greek neos plus mene is plausible but not securely attested, so we would flag it rather than assert it.

Moon names for boys

English has almost no male moon names, which is a fact about English rather than about the moon. Several other languages have plenty. Arabic gives Qamar, used for men in some countries and women in others, and Badr, which is a men's name and also the name of a battle in early Islamic history. Persian gives Mah-related compounds. Sanskrit gives Chandra, Chandran and Chandrashekhar, an epithet of Shiva meaning "moon-crowned". Old Norse gives Máni, the moon god who is the brother of Sól in the myths. Turkish gives Aydin and Ayberk. If you want a moon name for a boy, the options exist; they are simply not in English.

Choosing one

Luna is the obvious option and no longer an unusual one: it was 27th in the United States in 2025 with 6,076 babies on the Social Security Administration list. If that is too visible, Ayla gives you the same idea with a Turkish route and a Hebrew homonym, Selene gives you the Greek word that Luna translates, and Qamar, Hilal and Chandra give it in three traditions where the word is still ordinary. If you want the association rather than the word, Diana and Cynthia are honest choices as long as nobody tells you they mean moon.

Names that mean moon, and the ones that only suggest it