Vela - the Argo’s sails, Andromeda, and from way back Orion.
Sol
Alcyone is another al- star whose name does not come from Arabic. It’s a name from Greek mythology.
Antares also isn’t from Arabic. It’s the “anti-Ares”, i.e. opponent or rival to Mars. At least in color, that is; both are very reddish.
While many star names come from Arabic, there still a fair number from Latin and Greek. Polaris, for example, is from Latin. But interestingly, that name is relatively recent, only being named that about 5 or 6 hundred years ago. Because of precession of the equinoxes, that’s when it started to get close (about 5 degrees or so) to the pole.
Not starting with “al-” doesn’t mean it isn’t Arabic, either: for instance Denebola(sad), the Lion’s Tail, Rigel (al-Jabbar), the Giant’s Foot, (an-nasr al-waqi’) Vega, the Landing Eagle, Betelgeuse, etc. In each of those cases the “al” is on the second word, or has been corrupted. Cf our friend (Ra’s) Al-gol.
I wouldn’t want to step on the critters who live around Fang in the Scorpius constellation.
Barnard’s Star
It’s the most homely-sounding star. (I know IRL it’s not really anyplace you’d want to settle)
One astronomer insists a certain star is the North Star, but another one insists it’s the Dog Star. The first one looks through the telescope and says “Surely you can’t be Sirius.”
Mira
It sounds better than omicron Ceti, the star’s earlier name. It means “wonderful”.
It’s also interesting because it is, as star names go, pretty recent. It was given in 1639, and not originally as a name for the star. The name comes because Mira was, officially, the first variable star to be discovered. I have gone on record severely doubting that, but more below.
Mira was noticed to be missing by David Fabricius, a Dutch Lutheran clergyman, on August 13, 1596. Repeated observations showed that the star got progressively brighter and then dimmer over an 11 month cycle. Jan Heweliusza of Gdansk, Poland, writing under his latin cognomen of Johannes Hevelius, published a full account of the star’s behavior in a book called Historiola della Mira Stellae (“A Little History of the Wonderful Star”) in 1639.
(Over 40 years later – evidently these things take time.)
I’ve argued in my book that knowledge of the variability of Mira and Algol, as well as delta Cephei and gamma Cassiopeia must have been present in the ancient world, because these naked-eye visible variable stars are all in constellations associated with the myth of Perseus. In fact (counting Algol as head of Medusa), they’re all in villains opposing Perseus. I’m happy to see that, since my book Medusa was published, archaeoastronomers have come to think so, too.
Interesting side note – in his novel Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ, Lew Wallace has Sheik Ilderim name one of his horses “Mira”, after the star. This is a neat trick, considering that the star wouldn’t bear that name until over 1600 years later.
In the same vein, we have La Superba, named in the 19th century.
I worked at a computer facility that had all of their computers named for stars. I worked on Mira.
I love some of the old folk names like Éarendel.
I suppose Tolkien liked them too.
Triangulum Australe!