Planet Earth
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International Astronomical Union WGSN

IAU-Catalog of Star Names

This list is continuously updated and added to by the WGSN.

Abbreviations: 

  • ASE is the newly founded “All Skies Encyclopaedia“, a project designed for the documentation of all historical and Indigenous names (no matter whether or not they are reflected in this catalog). It also has the full documentation of all the names we applied from 2024 on. We will provide the hyperlink late in 2025 as this project is currently preliminarily hosted (by a university). 
  • NEWC: NameExoWorlds Campaign. These were public naming campaigns where different IAU bodies collaborated for public outreach, and allowed public name suggestions. Up to now, these campaigns had either a theme (e.g. “IAU 100” for the centenial) or/and criteria for the suggestion (e.g. in 2019 one suggestion per UN-registered nation). 
  • the abbreviations “sci-A” and “ind-A” are a quotation from Kunitzsch and Smart (2006) that we do not find acceptable; we only quote their wording. 
  • WGSN-id: refers to our own star catalog that we compiled from SIMBAD-data of the HR and HIP catalogs. DR1 was published in 2025 but we still occasionally find missing stars (due to missing data in the source database). 

Binaries (FAQ)

Resolved binaries and multiple systems have more than one number in either the HR or the HIP star catalog, or are indicated with letters “A” and “B” in their HIP-numbers. As WGSN assigns cultural names to stars brighter than Vmag = 6.5, the given HR or HIP-designator should be unambiguous. 

There are stars with only one HIP and HR number, though, that are indicated as “double or multiple” in SIMBAD. These are unresolved binaries. As we cannot predict future knowledge, we also cannot name it, and it would be anachronistic to name components prior to their listing in star catalogues. As soon as they get they “A”/ “B”… indicator in the HIP-catalog, we suggest to do the same with the name, or (in case of two-worded names) to split the name in two parts for the components.

Note: Because of the inconsistencies in HR, HIP and HD, we have created our own star catalogue (WGSN-id

Acknowledgements

  1. Collecting the etymologies of star names was a key project of WGSN 2018-’24; then, we had a “Task Group Etymologies” coordinated by Doris Vickers (Austria) and contributed to by many WGSN-members. Its task was merely collecting information on origins and references for the names adopted in the previous years. 
  2. In 2024, we launched a new project (ASE) to collect and publicly document this type of information while discussing name suggestions. Then, all historical and Indigenous names will be automatically accurately documented, and also the reasons for adoption or rejection for this catalog.

IAU-Catalog of Star Names (always up to date)