Stellar Name

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
(Redirected from Stellar Theme Naming)
"Stella, oh, Stella, Stella! Stella for Star!"
—Blanche, A Streetcar Named Desire

The night sky has been a source of wonder and inspiration for generations. Each new generation is told to "reach for the stars," and stories of people taking that advice quite literally can be found in your local bookstore's Science Fiction section. Most of us aren't so lucky as to be able to travel to the heavens, but there's still one constellation consolation: We can name our children after them.

In brief, a Stellar Name is a character name derived from something found in the night sky, such as a star, planet, constellation, or other object.

Terra would only count if falls under the above conditions.

Examples of Stellar Name include:

(Note: As it can be difficult to determine whether a mythical character was named for a heavenly body or vice-versa, please refrain from listing them.)

Stars and Constellations

  • Stella (meaning "star"; from Latin) is a fairly common female name:
  • Esther is another common female name meaning star in old Persian. Made popular especially among Jewish people due to the eponymous queen in the Book of Esther as part of the Hebrew Bible.
    • Sister Esther Blanchett from Trinity Blood is also referred to as the "Star of Hope" numerous times in the story.
  • Star from The Lost Boys
  • There's a character named Star in Danny Phantom, which leads to a few "satellite" jokes, referring to her status as tag-along to the series' popular girl, Paulina.
  • Almost the entire Black family from the Harry Potter series: Sirius, Bellatrix, Regulus, Alphard, Andromeda, and so on. Narcissa is an exception, but she passed the tradition to her son, Draco Malfoy, and Draco's son Scorpius. Also, Merope Gaunt.
  • Babar's wife is named Celeste.
  • Doctor Who episodes "Curse of Peladon" and "Monster of Peladon" have nonhumanoid alien characters named Arcturus and Alpha Centauri. They are the delegates from those places, so they may be an abbreviated version of their titles, rather than names.
    • "Monster" also had a Vega Nexos.
    • The last piece of the Key of Time from "The Armageddon Factor" was named Princess Astra. Lest we forget, her boyfriend calls this name at least twenty times per episode: "Astra? Astra?! Astra?!?"
  • The Oz mobile suits in Gundam Wing are named after the Western Zodiac.
  • The Transformers: Beast Wars comic introduced the Covenant, a group of 12 robots who were ancestral to the Transformers. The ones with names have names based on the Western Zodiac.
  • The Senshi in Sailor Moon are named after planets with the exception of the Title Character who is named after the Earth's natural satellite and Pluto because they took away her planet!
  • The title character in Momo has a pet turtle named Cassiopeia.
  • Mega Man Star Force has Geo Stelar and his (sometimes) school friend Luna. Additionally, the first game's bosses are all named for constellations. Also, Doctor Vega and Altair from the second game.
    • Geo Stelar's Japanese name is Subaru Hoshikawa. Subaru is also the Japanese name for the Pleiades star cluster, and the kanji for Hoshikawa means "star river".
  • Bomberman 64 features characters named Sirius, Orion, Regulus, and Altair (and his pet robot Vega). Token female Artemis is the Odd Name Out.
  • Tactics Ogre features the witch Deneb in several games, including as a playable character in Knight Of Lodis. She is named after the star at the head of the Cygnus constellation.
    • This probably comes from the fact that the a number of bosses in the original Ogre Battle had Theme Naming after stars.
  • In Forbidden Planet, Altaira "Alta" Morbius is named after the star Altair. This makes sense, because she was born on Altair 4, the fourth planet orbiting the star.Al
  • The DCU character Orion.
  • The 'hero' of Evil FTW.
  • All the New York Kagekidan girls from Sakura Taisen are named after constellations.
  • Beetlejuice may count, though his name's spelling is different from that of the star.
    • In the film, his advertising flyer spells it the same as the star, leading Alec Baldwin to mispronounce it.
  • Sirius from Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones is a slightly odd case. He actually is the star Sirius, but since he's in the form of a dog and can't talk, everybody else comes up with their own names for him. Two of those names are Leo and Sirius.
  • All of the teams from the Atari ST video game Speedball are named after constellations (Perseus, Mira, Draco, etc.)
  • Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS has Ginga Nakajima, one of two Artificial Human sisters, whose name means "galaxy" in Japanese.
    • Her little sister's name, Subaru, refers the the Pleiades.
  • Word of God has it that Orihime Inoue's first name is after the Japanese name of the star Vega.
  • Several Anime series have a character with the name Subaru. This is the Japanese name for the constellation/star cluster Pleiades. The car company takes its name from this also (it's on their emblem), because it was formed from 6 smaller companies (there is usually said to be seven pleiades - whence the common appelletion "the Seven Sisters" -, but most people can only see six, while those with unsually good eyesight may discern 8+ , and telescopes reveal hundreds more).
  • In Robert A. Heinlein's novel Glory Road, the female lead tells narrator/main character Oscar Gordon

"I Have Many Names...Would you like to call me 'Etarre'? ...Or it could be 'Esther' just as closely. Or 'Aster.' Or even 'Estrellita.'"

He ends up calling her "Star", mainly because of a horse he bet on called "My Lucky Star".
  • The various Seishi in Fushigi Yuugi are named for the constellations defined by the astrological/geomantic system described briefly in the entry on The Four Gods; of course, this is central to the plot.
    • Tamahome's and Hotohori's real names, Kishuku and Seishuku respectively, mean the same thing and are written in the same way as their Seishi names. The "Ryu" in Nuriko's real name, Ryuuen, means "Willow", which is what his Seishi symbol stands for as well.
  • The protagonists of Tokyo Babylon have names related to stars: Subaru is the Japanese name for the Pleiades, Hokuto for the Plough, and Seishiro has the kanji for star (sei) in his name.
  • Final Fantasy:
  • Captain Star of the eponymous series.
  • Star Man from Mega Man V 5, also Starman from the Earthbound (a.k.a Mother) series, a comic book superhero, an alien from a film and television series of the same name, and possibly others.
  • "Hoshi", meaning star, is a fairly common name or part of a name in anime and manga. A less common example as a given name is Hoshi Anju from Love Witch. (Incidentally, this means that Subaru Hoshikawa from Ryuusei No Rockman is doubly "starstruck", namewise: The aforementioned "Subaru", plus a surname that can apparently mean "galaxy" or, specifically, the Milky Way.)
    • There's the classic Baseball Manga/Anime Kyojin no Hoshi (Star of the Giants). Trust me, even if you haven't seen it, you've seen it (gets homaged that much). The hero of that story is named "Hoshi", with the double-meaning implied.
    • The Hoshino family from Katamari Damacy, surname meaning "of the stars".
    • Another Hoshino, so to speak: Hoshi no Kirby.
    • In a non-anime example, Hoshi Sato of Star Trek: Enterprise, who is the Japanese linguist, was undoubtedly given that name for a reason.
    • Hoshi from the reimagined Battlestar Galactica.
  • An early concept name for Luke Skywalker was Luke Starkiller. Recognizing the aggressive awesomeness apparent in such a name, the Star Wars Expanded Universe gave it to a superweapon, to the Mandalorian Bendak Starkiller, and later to Vader's first secret apprentice.
    • "Starkiller" might have slyly been dropped on Wedge Antilles, too, in the X Wing Series. On one planet his name is given a Punctuation Shaker to change its meaning in the native language from "so foul it would sicken a rancor" to "slayer of stars". This has the neat added bonus of also referring back to the fact that Wedge destroyed the second Death Star.
      • Wedge's sister Syal, who was a holofilm actress, took the stage name Wynssa Starflare.
  • Yuto Sakurai/Kamen Rider Zeronos from Kamen Rider Den-O gets a lot of stellar references, especially appropriate since he's an avid stargazer. Zeronos' two forms are Altair and Vega, while his partner Imagin is named Deneb. This also reflects Yuto's relationship with Airi Nogami; in Eastern astrology, Altair and Vega are Star-Crossed Lovers who can only meet once a year, with the aid of Deneb, either a bridge of magpies or a fairy guardian.
  • Estellise/Estelle from Tales of Vesperia counts, along with the game title itself, referencing to a star in-game and the guild, Brave Vesperia that the party establishes.
  • Steambot Chronicles: Battle Tournament has characters named Vega and Diphda. This is just the beginning for the game's celestial being-themed naming.
  • The three Arena Emperors (Alkaid, Taihaku, Sirius) in .hack//G.U. are all named after stars.
  • In Jet Force Gemini the main characters' names are Juno, Vela, and Lupus.
  • Super Robot Wars: the Altairion and Vegalion from the stars Altair and Vega. Notably, these two stars take part in the story of cowherd and the weaver girl.
    • Not to mention the mech formed from them combining, the Hyperlion, possibly named after Hyperion, the moon of Saturn.
  • Atrus, Sirrus, and Achenar are all named after stars - Arcturus, Sirius, and Achernar (Epsilon Eridani) respectively.
  • Pretty much everyone from Gaia Online's Lonely Star item: Saiph and Hatsya (named for two of the stars in Orion), Cygnus, Gemini, Pisces and Crux.
  • In JRR Tolkien's works: one of the names for "Elves" in Elvish is "Eldar" (or "edhil"), meaning "(people) of the stars." The element "el" or "edhel" can be found in many names: see for instance "Elrond" translated alternatively (by Tolkien himself!) as "Dome of Stars" or "Elf of the Cave."
    • Inverted with Eärendil, originally a Half-Elf named "Lover of the Sea," later a star.
  • Strange Journey's heroes assign each of the Schwarzwelt's sectors a name based on a constellation beginning with each successive letter of the alphabet, tending towards ones in the southern sky—Antlia, Bootes, Carina, Delphinus, Eridanus, Fornax, Grus, Horologium. (Atlus didn't have much of a choice with Bootes and Delphinus; they're northern sky constellations, yes, but also the only ones that begin with their respective letters.)
  • In the Lego Life on Mars theme, all of the Martian characters are named after stars or constellations, often with a trait shared by the character, like Cassiopeia (the only female Martian in the series) or their leader Riegel (which isn't a star name; however, Rigel is the sixth-brightest star in the sky).
  • Nearly every single enemy in Hybrid Heaven is named after a star.
  • Arcturus Mengsk from the Starcraft series is named after a star.
  • Altair from Assassin's Creed is named after a star also.
  • So is Algol from Soul Calibur.
  • Betelgeuse from Beetlejuice shares his name with one of the largest known stars in the universe.
  • GEAR Fighter Dendoh is all over this. Main characters are called Hokuto (North Star) and Ginga (Galaxy), there's Cool Old Sis Vega and mother of Hokuto, The Dragon Altair who is Vega's older brother and later on, another villain called Subaru he's Altair's brother of sorts. Yes, that means everyone but Ginga here is related.
  • In Star Blazers, the English language version of Space Battleship Yamato, we have Derek Wildstar, Nova, and Orion.
  • Princess Celestia from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic. And yes, her name is also that of a popular astronomy software.
  • Albireo from Mahou Sensei Negima,whose name comes from a binary star in the constellation Cygnus.
  • The trolls of Homestuck each share a symbol with a particular Zodiac sign. In addition to other aspects of their lives, their names (and occasionally usernames) contain allusions to their respective signs, ranging from anagrams (Sollux Captor/twinArmageddons for Gemini), constellation names from other languages (Kanaya, Karkat, and Vriska derived from Hindu with spelling adjustments; Terezi from Azerbaijani), to mythological references (the Aquarius troll is named Eridan), and so on. Additionally, the numbers 6, 12, and 612 just keep happening to them - for example, the mentioned spelling adjustments, as each troll has a first name and last name of six letters each.
  • Kimba the White Lion's name in Japan is Leo, which is a constellation of a lion.
  • The title character from Ristar.
  • Rygel in Farscape.
  • In My Sister's Keeper, Anna is named after the Andromeda Galaxy.
  • A couple of Argon ships in the X-Universe series are named for stellar phenomena, specifically the Nova fighter, Eclipse heavy fighter, and Magnetar military transport.
  • In the Warrior Cats series, when a cat becomes a Clan leader, the last half of their name is replaced with "-star", to represent how they're connected to their ancestors, StarClan. So Fireheart becomes Firestar, Nightpelt becomes Nightstar, Tigerclaw becomes Tigerstar, and so on.
  • In the manga version of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX, all of the monsters in Zane's deck are named after stars in the constellation Draco.

Other Bodies

  • Luna (meaning "moon") is another common one:
  • Mars Blackmon from the Spike Lee movie She's Gotta Have It.
  • The Mars chocolate bar was named after its inventor (who was also one of the Ms in M&M chocolates), but this led to other chocolate bars in the same range also being given celestial names (Galaxy and Milky Way).
  • Real Life: Frank Zappa's daughter Moon Unit.
    • She was, actually, named after a spacecraft, not after the moon itself.
  • Laura Moon from American Gods and of course her husband, Shadow.
  • Goldmoon from the Dragonlance saga.
  • Moonflower in Warrior Cats - the authors weren't going to name any cat "Moon-" because the moon has special meaning to the cats, but the book Moonflower appeared in was written by a new author, and they decided to leave it.
  • Mickey Mouse's dog Pluto. He first appeared around 1930, the same year the (dwarf) planet Pluto was discovered, and it's highly unlikely that someone would name a cartoon dog after the Roman god of the dead.
  • Gundam Seed Destiny's Lunamaria Hawke is named after the basaltic planes on the moon. Shinn has a thing for heavenly bodies, perhaps?
  • Winston Marrs from the Sega Genesis version of Shadowrun.
  • In the original Mega Man, the Stardroids from 5 V for the Game Boy Color were named after planets.
    • Even Terra, which means "Earth"
    • Also, Dark Moon (this game's version of a Yellow Devil) and Sunstar, the final boss.
  • In Avatar: The Last Airbender we have Princess Yue, whose name is Chinese for "moon." Of course she becomes the Moon Spirit shortly after we meet her.
  • JRR Tolkien's Elves (The Lord of the Rings) have a particular fond relationship to the stars, (see above) and other celestial objects. A nice example are the human lord Elendil ("star-friend"/"elf-friend") and his sons Isildur ("moon-servant") and Anarion ("sun-son").
  • The Super Novas in Custom Robo Arena: Lunax, Terrax, and Solax (which is also a pun). They're just nicknames though, as Lunax's real name is Lenny (his Berserk Button, of sorts).
  • The Team Galactic commanders in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl are named Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, and Pluto (who was renamed Charon in the English release). Their leader Cyrus's name refers to the sun.
  • The five sisters, Exalted's Maidens of Destiny; Mars, Maiden of Battles; Venus, Maiden of Serenity; Jupiter, Maiden of Secrets; Mercury, Maiden of Journeys; and Saturn, Maiden of Endings.
  • Ethan Mars (along with his family) of Heavy Rain.
  • In One Piece, the Five Celestial Dragons are all named after planets, either directly or by puns: Jaygarcia Saturn, Marcus Mars, Topman Warcury, Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro, and Shepherd Ju Peter.

Miscellaneous

  • Sora from Kingdom Hearts, whose name means "sky" (parallel to Riku's "land" and Kairi's "sea")
  • Appearing in various Final Fantasy/Kingdom Hearts games: Cloud, Squall, etc.
  • Stellaluna, a children's picture book about a bat combines the words for "star" and "moon".
  • The book This Place Has No Atmosphere by Paula Danziger takes place in a future where people now live on the moon. The heroine is named Aurora Borealis Williams, her sister is Starr, other kids in school are Juna (first kid conceived in space) and Cosmosa.
  • The main character of Diana Wynne Jones' latest novel, The Game, is named Haley, the reader realizes the signifigance towards the end of the story when they meet her parents.
  • Tycho Brahe was an astronomer with an awesome, seldom-heard name that got scooped up a few times for fiction.
  • Baten Kaitos is made of this, for most of the locations and non-playable characters. And of course, the game's name refers to a star...
  • Final Fantasy VI has Terra and Celes, earth and sky (but the former's name was created by the translation, in Japanese it is "Tina").
  • In Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, we have all the major Team Galatic members, who are named after something in our solar system: Jupiter (Ceres in the Spanish version), Mars (Venus in the Spanish version), Saturn and Charon (after Pluto's largest moon). Cyrus's name comes from a Persian word meaning "sun".
  • Digimon gives us the Olympus Twelve - 6 unknown, the others being: Neptunmon (Neptunemon), Minervamon, Merukimon (Mercurymon), Marsmon,as well as Dianamon and Apollomon, named for the roman moon goddess and sun god respectively.
  • All of Lucy's Celestial Spirits in Fairy Tail are named after constellations.
  • The villain of Power Rangers in Space is named after something in the sky.
    • "Astro"nema - Astro mean star.
    • Ecliptor - from the word eclispe
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury's Suletta Mercury [1] and her bride to be Miorine Rembran.
  1. ↑ She inherited the surname of her mother's alias and, at least officially, was born in Mercury's orbit
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