# How many named stars are there? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 12, 2010, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-named-stars-are-there/524596 "2010-01-12T02:00:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-named-stars-are-there/524596/1 "2010-01-12T02:00:48Z")
I thought this would be trivial to Google but I am not having any luck. How many named stars are there in the sky? Named like Sirius and not like XQÑ-3576. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-named-stars-are-there/524596/2 "2010-01-12T02:05:52Z")
About 70, afaik > **[List of brightest stars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightest_stars)** > > This is a list of stars arranged by their apparent magnitude – their brightness as observed from Earth. It includes all stars brighter than magnitude +2.50 in visible light, measured using a V-band filter in the UBV photometric system. Stars in binary systems (or other multiples) are listed by their total or combined brightness if they appear as a single star to the naked eye, or listed separately if they do not. As with all magnitude systems in astronomy, the scale is logarithmic and inverted i.... Only the brightest stars were named in the old days. It depends on whether or not you include “Alpha Centauri A” as a name \*like XQÑ-3576. \* Assuming you don’t, I count just under 70. ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-named-stars-are-there/524596/3 "2010-01-12T02:20:17Z")
Really, that few?. There are more constellations than named stars? (And no, I don’t count Alpha Centauri as a name, even though it is a bit of a household name) I would have expected the ancients to name a lot more stars since they didn’t have light pollution to filter their view of the sky. Can all the named stars be seen in our light polluted city skies (varying by location, of course)? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-named-stars-are-there/524596/4 "2010-01-12T02:21:08Z")
Define “star”. Do you mean the pinpoints of light you see in the sky? Because by that measure, you could say that Sirius, say, has a name. Alternately, though, do you mean the individual balls of glowing gas out in space? Because then you’ve got to deal with two different stars, Sirius-A and Sirius-B, and you’d be forced to say either that they both have names, or that neither does. Then there are all those Southern Hemisphere stars that weren’t on the old Mediterranean lists, and which therefore have rather unimaginative names: Does “Acrux” count as a name, given that it’s just a shortened form of “alpha Crucis”? Given that what gets named is generally what people actually see, I’d assume that you meant the spots of light, but there are a lot more named stars than just that handful of brightest ones. Off the top of my head, Mizar is on that list but its visible companion Alcor isn’t, for instance, and all of the visible Pleiades have names, too. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-named-stars-are-there/524596/5 "2010-01-12T02:25:45Z")
> [@](#): > > (And no, I don’t count Alpha Centauri as a name, even though it is a bit of a household name) Is “Rigel Kentaurus” better, then? What about Proxima Centauri (which is _not_ naked-eye visible). And would something like “Barnard’s star” or “the Pistol Star” count as names? ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-named-stars-are-there/524596/6 "2010-01-12T02:26:19Z")
Points of light. So yes, Sirius is one star with one name. I guess Acrux is not since you are saying it is just short for Alpha Crucis and we are saying Alpha Centauri is not a named star. You do bring a good point. Are named stars concentrated on the northern hemisphere since the names come from northern hemisphere dwellers? What’s the most recent named star? When did we stop naming them and just cataloging them with serials? ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-named-stars-are-there/524596/7 "2010-01-12T02:35:54Z")
Rigel Kentaurus (or Toliman) does count as a name. So does Proxima Centauri, I guess. Barnard and Pistol definitely count if they are registered somewhere. Evangeline (as in The Princess and the Frog) is not since it is a name someone gave it and it is not widely recognized. So let’s go with the broadest possible definition of named star and say that any name that is not just a letter-constellation name that is registered in any widely accepted astronomical catalog counts. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-named-stars-are-there/524596/8 "2010-01-12T03:43:04Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > About 70, afaik > [List of brightest stars - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightest_stars) > > Only the brightest stars were named in the old days. > It depends on whether or not you include “Alpha Centauri A” as a name \*like XQÑ-3576. \*Assuming you don’t, I count just under 70. That list doesn’t include my favorite star, _Shurnarkabti Shashutu,_ ([Zeta Tauri](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeta_Tauri)). That list doesn’t include many of the [named stars in Taurus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stars_in_Taurus), depending on what your standards are for what constitutes a name. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-named-stars-are-there/524596/9 "2010-01-12T03:47:54Z")
[Wiki says](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_naming_conventions) “Estimates of the number of stars with recognised proper names range from 300 to 350 different stars”. ---
**Author:** ![FatBaldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecd19e/32.png) [@FatBaldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FatBaldGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-named-stars-are-there/524596/10 "2010-01-12T03:59:00Z")
But what about all the [del]suckers[/del] people who paid to have stars named after their friends? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-named-stars-are-there/524596/11 "2010-01-12T04:34:13Z")
> [@](#): > > Barnard and Pistol definitely count if they are registered somewhere. Both are listed under those names in SIMBAD, the standard database of objects used by astronomers. There’s probably some way to search for all objects in the database which have a name and which are stars, but I don’t know offhand what it would be. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-named-stars-are-there/524596/12 "2010-01-12T06:26:51Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > [Wiki says](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_naming_conventions) “Estimates of the number of stars with recognised proper names range from 300 to 350 different stars”. Ok, yes, that’s a good cite. But still, many of those names are no better than \*Alpha Centauri \*. For example “\*Delta Scorpii (δ Sco / δ Scorpii) is a star in the constellation Scorpius. It has the traditional name Dschubba (or Dzuba, from Arabic jabhat, “forehead” (of the scorpion)” \* Or Acrux (α Cru / α Crucis / Alpha Crucis/ HD 108248) is the brightest star in constellation Crux, the Southern Cross…“Acrux” is simply a contraction of the A in Alpha plus Crux." Or **Fear Itself** fave "\*Zeta Tauri (ζ Tau / ζ Tauri) is a binary star in the constellation Taurus, the Bull. Known to the ancient Babylonians as Shurnarkabti-sha-shutu, meaning “the star in the bull towards the south,” \* In other words, it’s name is a place name in the constellation. My rough estimate is that about 2/3rd of the traditional names for stars are based upon their place names in a constellation. So, then around 100?😕 > **[List of proper names of stars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_traditional_star_names)** > > These names of stars that have either been approved by the International Astronomical Union or which have been in somewhat recent use. IAU approval comes mostly from its Working Group on Star Names, which has been publishing a "List of IAU-approved Star Names" since 2016. As of December 2025, the list included a total of 530 proper names of stars. > Of the roughly 10,000 stars visible to the naked eye, only a few hundred have been given proper names in the history of astronomy.\[a\] Traditional as... ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-named-stars-are-there/524596/13 "2010-01-12T10:12:23Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > In other words, it’s name is a place name in the constellation. My rough estimate is that about 2/3rd of the traditional names for stars are based upon their place names in a constellation. So, then around 100?😕 > > [List of proper names of stars - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_traditional_star_names) If you’re going to exclude all of those, though, you’re going to have to throw out such well-known stars as [Rigel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigel#Etymology_and_cultural_significance), [Deneb](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deneb#Etymology_and_cultural_significance), and arguably [Vega](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega#Etymology_and_cultural_significance) and [Betelgeuse](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betelgeuse#Etymology) (although Vega’s name represents an [alternative interpretation of the constellation of which it is a part](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyra#History), and Betelgeuse has gotten garbled over time). ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-named-stars-are-there/524596/14 "2010-01-12T12:25:50Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Ok, yes, that’s a good cite. But still, many of those names are no better than \*Alpha Centauri \*. For example “\*Delta Scorpii (δ Sco / δ Scorpii) is a star in the constellation Scorpius. It has the traditional name Dschubba (or Dzuba, from Arabic jabhat, “forehead” (of the scorpion)” \*Or Acrux (α Cru / α Crucis / Alpha Crucis/ HD 108248) is the brightest star in constellation Crux, the Southern Cross…“Acrux” is simply a contraction of the A in Alpha plus Crux." Or **Fear Itself** fave "\*Zeta Tauri (ζ Tau / ζ Tauri) is a binary star in the constellation Taurus, the Bull. Known to the ancient Babylonians as Shurnarkabti-sha-shutu, meaning “the star in the bull towards the south,” \* > > In other words, it’s name is a place name in the constellation. My rough estimate is that about 2/3rd of the traditional names for stars are based upon their place names in a constellation. So, then around 100?😕 > > [List of proper names of stars - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_traditional_star_names) I’m not sure I go along with that. By that logic, there are only 45 named US states, because North Dakota and South Dakota are just locations in the Dakotas, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-named-stars-are-there/524596/15 "2010-01-12T13:02:51Z")
How old a name do you want? Many of the names we use today are simply a Greek letter and the name of the constellation, which isn’t much of a name. The letters, counting from the beginning of the Greek alphabet, indicate the order of brightness in the constellation. Thus “omega Ceti” is thus “the 18th brightest star in the Constellation Cetus”. These names are a combination of what’s in Ptolemy’s circa first century catalog the _Syntaxis_ (AKA the _Almagest_) along with Johann Bayer’s 1603 _Uranometria_. Bayer named 1,564 stars, which might be close to your answer. > **[Bayer designation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_designation)** > > A Bayer designation is a stellar designation in which a specific star is identified by a Greek or Latin letter followed by the genitive form of its parent constellation's Latin name. The original list of Bayer designations contained 1,564 stars. The brighter stars were assigned their first systematic names by the German astronomer Johann Bayer in 1603, in his star atlas Uranometria. Bayer catalogued only a few stars too far south to be seen from Germany, but later astronomers (including Nicolas-L... Even looking at Ptolemy’s names, you find that many translate to things like “the bright one in the Lion’s Head” and suchlike. Many of the “traditional” names are medieval Arabic names, and are usually descriptive names similar to Ptolemy’s – “Betelgeuse” is probably something like “The Armpit of the Giant”, although there’s some controversy about that. And, of course, there have been names added since Bayer. “Omicron Ceti” is also called “Mira”, ever since Hevelius wrote a book about this first-to-be-generally-recognized variable star, entitled _Historiola Mirae Stellae_ in 1662. (So that having Sheikh Ilderim name one of his chariot horses “Mira” in Lew Wallace’s _Ben Hur_, set at the time of Christ, is an anachronism). We’ve since added other star names, like the aforementioned _Barnard’s Star_. If you look at the non-descriptive star names, there are damned few, like Sirius, Regulus, and Spica (and arguably Polaris, although that’s kinda descriptive) – I’d guess much fewer than 100. ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-named-stars-are-there/524596/16 "2010-01-12T18:01:18Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > In other words, it’s name is a place name in the constellation. My rough estimate is that about 2/3rd of the traditional names for stars are based upon their place names in a constellation. So, then around 100?😕 > > [List of proper names of stars - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_traditional_star_names) Wait, according to that list, there are over 100 named stars just starting with the letter A and of which only a handful are \* Secundus or similarly descriptive names. Now cases like Betelgeuse kinda break my question. They are names that don’t sound like descriptive names to us but they were just that originally. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-named-stars-are-there/524596/17 "2010-01-12T18:03:33Z")
> [@Sapo](#): > > Now cases like Betelgeuse kinda break my question. They are names that don’t sound like descriptive names to us but they were just that originally. But the thing is, nearly all names are like that if you go back far enough. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-named-stars-are-there/524596/18 "2010-01-12T18:08:59Z")
I don’t see why that should be a disqualifier. Not many people speak Babylonian any more. To point out that they were just noting positions in Babylonian seems rather pedantic. Lots of terrrestrial place names originated as descriptions of their location, but have lost those meanings as language changed. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-named-stars-are-there/524596/19 "2010-01-12T22:52:54Z")
I don’t know; there seems to me to be a real difference between a designation which means, say, “the heart of the lion”, and one which just means “the brightest star in the lion”. I mean, clearly every constellation must have a brightest star (and a second-brightest, and generally a third-brightest and so on), but not every constellation necessarily has a heart (or armpit, or tail, or whatever). There’s no imagination or creativity in deciding which star is brighter than another, but there is creativity in deciding whether a cluster of stars is an udder or a scrotum (I had a roommate once who described the Pleiades as “the udder of Taurus”). ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-named-stars-are-there/524596/20 "2010-01-12T23:52:50Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > (I had a roommate once who described the Pleiades as “the udder of Taurus”). Is he one of the creators of [“Back at the Barnyard”](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0857277/goofs)? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-named-stars-are-there/524596.md?page=2)