Rashi by Name
नाम से राशि
A traditional name begins with the syllable of the pada the Moon occupied at birth. Run that backwards and the first sound of a name gives the nakshatra, the pada and the rashi together.
This works from the janma naam — the name given at naamkaran, chosen from the syllable of the nakshatra the Moon occupied at your birth. If your name was chosen any other way, and most are, the rashi it produces belongs to nobody. Your birth date will give you a better answer.
Find your rashi
I already know my nakshatra
The full letter table
Every rashi covers exactly nine padas, and each pada carries one naming syllable. This is that mapping in full — the same table the calculator above reads from.
Mesh मेष · Aries
चु Chu , चे Che , चो Cho , ला La , ली Lee , लू Lu , ले Le , लो Lo , अ A
Vrishabh वृषभ · Taurus
ई Ee , उ U , ए Ea , ओ O , वा Va , वी Vee , वू Vu , वे Ve , वो Vo
Mithun मिथुन · Gemini
का Ka , की Kee , कु Ku , घ Gha , ङ Ng , छ Chha , के Ke , को Ko , हा Ha
Kark कर्क · Cancer
ही Hee , हु Hu , हे He , हो Ho , डा Da , डी Dee , डू Du , डे De , डो Do
Singh सिंह · Leo
मा Ma , मी Mee , मू Mu , मे Me , मो Mo , टा Ta , टी Tee , टू Tu , टे Te
Kanya कन्या · Virgo
टो To , पा Pa , पी Pee , पू Pu , ष Sha , ण Na , ठ Tha , पे Pe , पो Po
Tula तुला · Libra
रा Ra , री Ree , रू Ru , रे Re , रो Ro , ता Taa , ती Tee , तू Too , ते Te
Vrishchik वृश्चिक · Scorpio
तो To , ना Na , नी Nee , नू Noo , ने Ne , नो No , या Ya , यी Yee , यू Yoo
Dhanu धनु · Sagittarius
ये Ye , यो Yo , भा Bha , भी Bhee , भू Bhu , धा Dha , फा Pha , ढा Dha , भे Bhe
Makar मकर · Capricorn
भो Bho , जा Ja , जी Jee , खी Khee , खू Khoo , खे Khe , खो Kho , गा Ga , गी Gee
Kumbh कुंभ · Aquarius
गु Gu , गे Ge , गो Go , सा Sa , सी See , सू Soo , से Se , सो So , दा Da
Meen मीन · Pisces
दी Dee , दू Du , थ Tha , झ Jha , ञ Yna , दे De , दो Do , चा Cha , ची Chee
Why the same spelling can mean two rashis
The syllables above are Devanagari, and Devanagari separates sounds English writes with a single letter. ड and द are both "d"; ट and त are both "t"; the same goes for ण against न and ठ against थ.
28 of the 108 padas collide once written in English, and the two readings are rarely close together. "Deepak" is डी — Ashlesha, and so Kark — or दी — Purva Bhadrapada, and so Meen. Two different signs, two different rulers, two unrelated rashifal.
On roughly one common name in seven this happens. Most calculators pick one silently and show no sign they made a choice; ours shows both letters and asks which sound your name uses. It is one extra click against the possibility of reading the wrong rashifal for years.
If you know your birth date, use it instead
A name is the fallback, not the preferred route. The rashi is a fact about where the Moon was, and the Moon's position comes from the date, time and place — not from what you were called.
Even a date with no time beats a name you are unsure about, and by more than you would guess. A day of lunar motion covers about 13.2° while a rashi spans 30°, so the whole day falls inside a single sign roughly six times in ten — the date alone settles your rashi outright. The other four times it leaves two adjacent signs, and an approximate time separates them. A name chosen for its sound narrows nothing at all.
Generate my KundliRashi is the moon sign, not the sun sign
Worth settling, because it is the most common confusion about the word. If you know your sign from a birthday — Leo because you were born in August — that is the sun sign. A rashi is where the Moon stood, and the two coincide about one time in twelve.
Almost everything in Vedic astrology is read against the moon sign: the daily rashifal, Guna Milan, Sade Sati, the Vimshottari dasha. Reading a rashifal against a sun sign is reading somebody else's. The Western zodiac signs are the other system, and we publish both.
Common questions
How do I find my rashi from my name?
By the syllable it begins with. At the naamkaran a child is given a name starting with the sound belonging to the pada the Moon occupied at birth — one of 108 — and each pada sits wholly inside one rashi. So the opening syllable identifies the nakshatra, the pada and the moon sign together. That only holds for the name given at the ceremony, which is often not the name someone goes by.
Is rashi by name accurate?
The method is exact and the input usually is not. Given a genuine janma naam it returns the right rashi by construction, because the name was chosen from that rashi in the first place. Given an everyday name chosen for its sound, it returns a rashi with no connection to the birth at all. The method is not the weak part.
My name gives two rashis. Which one is mine?
Whichever matches the sound. English writes ड and द both as "d", and ट and त both as "t", so a name like Deepak points at डी in Ashlesha, which is Kark, and at दी in Purva Bhadrapada, which is Meen. Those are not neighbouring signs and the rashifal for one has nothing to do with the other. The tool shows both letters so you can pick the one your name uses in Hindi.
Can I find my rashi from my date of birth instead?
Yes, and you should if you can. Put the date and place into the free Kundli and give the time as best you know it — an hour either way changes the Lagna but almost never the rashi, because the Moon takes over two days to cross a sign. If the time is genuinely unknown, enter noon: that is the worst error you can make on the day, and it is still under seven degrees.
Is my rashi the same as my zodiac sign?
Usually not — they are two different placements, and the practical test is easy. Your zodiac sign can be worked out from your birthday alone, because the Sun keeps to a calendar. Your rashi cannot: two people born on the same date in different years almost always have different rashis, because the Moon is somewhere else entirely. If a site gave you a sign from your date of birth without asking anything else, it gave you the sun sign.
What is a pada?
A quarter of a nakshatra, spanning 3°20′ — 108 of them around the zodiac. The reason they matter for naming is that a nakshatra can straddle a sign boundary but a pada never does: Krittika, for instance, begins in Mesh and finishes in Vrishabh, so knowing the nakshatra alone would not always settle the rashi. Knowing the pada always does.