Buddhist Baby Names and Naming Ceremonies

By Tim Yu, Founder & Editor · Published 21 October 2026

Checked against the primary texts · How we check · Report a correction

Buddhist baby names are usually Pali, Sanskrit or Tibetan words for things the teachings prize: Mettā, friendliness or love; Bodhi, enlightenment; Tenzin, holder of the teachings. There is no one Buddhist naming ceremony. A monk or lama may bless or name a child, but the method, such as a weekday letter or horoscope, is usually local astrology or custom.

That distinction is what this page is for. Each custom below is labelled for what it is: early text, later commentary, local custom, temple practice, or astrology practised by Buddhists without being Buddhist teaching. Then come the names, each checked against a standard dictionary.

A baby name is not a Dharma name, which a teacher usually gives when someone takes refuge, receives precepts or is ordained. A baby name comes from the family, sometimes with a monk’s or lama’s help.

What the Buddhist texts say about naming a child

We found no naming rite in the early discourses. Their clearest naming scene concerns a Buddha of a past age, Vipassī, in the Mahāpadāna Sutta (DN 14). Brahmin soothsayers examine the baby for the thirty-two marks of a great man and predict his destiny, but his name comes from the baby himself:

Later, sitting in his father’s lap at court and thinking each case through, he earns it again: “all the more reason for him to be known as ‘Vipassī’.” Bhikkhu Sujato’s note puts the point plainly: “Here we see how a name is given, not at birth, but as a descriptive nickname that caught on.”

The commentaries, written centuries later, know a formal ceremony. The Pali Text Society dictionary cites the Dhammapada commentary (DhA ii.87) for the festivities of bringing up a child: the nāma-karaṇa-maṅgala, “the ceremony of giving a name”, alongside first solid food, piercing the ears, taking up the robe and making the top-knot.

The Buddha’s own naming belongs to this later layer. In the Jātaka’s introduction, the Nidānakathā, “the rite of choosing a name” is held on the fifth day, and 108 brahmins are asked to read the signs. The passage, in T. W. Rhys Davids’s 1880 translation, does not state the name chosen; “Siddhattha” appears later in the account, and Malalasekera’s dictionary of proper names records it as “The personal name of Gotama Buddha”. See the birth of the Buddha, and, for his son Rāhula, the Buddha’s family.

The early texts also take a view of astrology. The Brahmajāla Sutta (DN 1) lists “making predictions about the results of all such phenomena” (eclipses, conjunctions, the rising and setting of moon, sun and stars) among things some ascetics live by, and says “The ascetic Gotama refrains from such low lore, such wrong livelihood.” The sutta frames each such list as “an ordinary person’s praise” of the Buddha. Two of Sujato’s notes keep it in proportion. The section concerns practices that are wrong livelihood “for a mendicant, though not for lay people”. And: “Despite this, astrology is commonly practiced today among Buddhist mendicants.”

Words for a safe birth

In Theravada countries, one canonical passage is used as a blessing for a safe birth. It comes from the Aṅgulimāla Sutta (MN 86): Aṅgulimāla, the murderer turned monk, sees “a woman undergoing a distressing obstructed labor”, and on the Buddha’s instruction goes back to her and says:

Two sources attest its use today. Bhikkhu Sujato notes that this act of truth “is still used as a blessing for pregnant women in Theravada”, and Piyadassi Thera included it in The Book of Protection “as it is a paritta made use of by expectant mothers in Buddhist lands”. The story itself is told on Aṅgulimāla; on paritta generally, see Buddhist chanting.

Naming customs country by country

Myanmar: the letter of your weekday

In Myanmar most people have no surname, and a Burman baby’s name is, in Ma Tin Cho Mar’s words, “ceremoniously chosen by the family members according to a set astrological formula” that shares out the Burmese alphabet among the days of the week. Wednesday is split at noon, so the chart has eight rows. Her 2020 paper gives it as:

Treat it as indicative: “(in Arakan)” shows regional variation, and both this paper and the Cultural Atlas guide that confirms the system lean on informal sources. Some families apply the formula only to the first part of the name, though Ma Tin Cho Mar writes that only “a small percentage” ignore it altogether. Cultural Atlas (2021) adds that some families consult an astrologer, while in other cases “a monk, elderly relative or the child’s parents” choose, and that not every ethnic group may follow these conventions. A blogger quoted by Ma Tin Cho Mar recalls that an astrologer his mother knew made his zar tar, a palm-leaf birth horoscope bearing his name; such records are, he says, “usually prepare[d] by monks and astrologers”. That is one man’s account, not a survey. What kind of thing is this? Astrology, practised by Buddhists and sometimes by monks.

Thailand: a monk, a fortune teller, a nickname

The Cultural Atlas guide to Thailand (2021), which like its Myanmar page rests on informal sources, says “It is common for parents to consult with a monk, fortune teller, or other respected person in society” for an auspicious name. Names may be changed later by someone “burdened by bad luck/ill health”, and the everyday nickname carries a folk belief: “nicknames protect children against jealous spirits.”

The weekday method is Thai astrology. Chakkrit Snae (2006) describes it as building a name from letters tied to eight attributes reckoned from the day of birth, and notes that naming “can vary, e.g. naming by monks, grandparents.” No source we found says monks usually name by weekday. Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker, in a 2008 Siam Society lecture, describe Thai monks’ astrology more broadly: “monk astrologers often use these simpler systems” of prediction, such as lists linking days with colours, rather than full Indic planetary calculation. They also write that “A very high proportion of the services that Buddhist monks supply to their clientele” is saiyasat, supernaturalism. Their example: after a prime minister’s government fell in 1992, his wife went to a monk at Wat Boworniwet, who “consulted her husband’s astrological chart and decided he needed to change his name”.

Sri Lanka: a name at the first rice, a blessing at the temple

In traditional Sinhalese practice in Sri Lanka, as Asiff Hussein describes it, “the most important childhood ritual” is the nam tebima, the naming ceremony, which “often takes place a few months after birth” when the baby is first fed rice. The name is the batkavapu nama, “the name given at the first feeding of the rice”. In Kandyan times, he writes, the naming “appears” to have come in the seventh month. Hussein suggests that much Sinhalese birth ritual could be traced back to the early Indo-Aryans, and writes that this rite “could be considered the equivalent of the Hindu Namakarana”. His account mentions no monk taking part: this is custom, with a Hindu parallel.

The Buddhist rite recorded for a Sri Lankan newborn is a blessing, not a naming. A. G. S. Kariyawasam, writing for the Buddhist Publication Society, records that “the baby’s first outing would be to a temple”: on “an auspicious day or a full-moon day” the parents place the child “in front of a statue of the Buddha for the purpose of obtaining the blessings of the Triple Gem”. At the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic in Kandy, mothers hand their babies to an officiating layman, the kapuva, who lays each child for a few seconds near the Relic Chamber and hands it back. That is temple custom.

Kariyawasam also records astrology: “The first thing done at the birth of a child is to cast the horoscope, which has to be consulted subsequently at all the important events of his or her life.” He does not connect the horoscope with the name. You will often read that a Sri Lankan astrologer fixes a baby’s first letters from the birth star. We found that claim only on commercial sites and could not confirm it in a scholarly source, so we do not repeat it as fact.

Tibet: the lama’s name

Here a Buddhist teacher usually does the naming. Geoff Childs, citing earlier work on Tibetan custom, writes that although parents can name a child themselves, “most prefer that the task be carried out by an incarnate lama in order to assure the child’s health and longevity”. In sKyid grong, the former district of Tibet his 2003 study covers, “as in most Tibetan societies”, naming “was usually performed by a lama”. According to elderly informants there, birth caused pollution, which a lama first cleansed with an incense rite; “Only afterwards was it possible to name the child.” A child might be named after a famous lama, after the day of birth, or from parts of the parents’ names.

Day names were the most common first names. In a 1958 register of 2,844 taxpayers, 1,201, or 42.2 per cent, bore their weekday as a first name: Nyima (Sunday), Dawa (Monday), and so on. Childs found “no astrological rationale” for why some days were used far more than others. Buddhist figures appear as well: Dolma recalls Tārā; where the Nyingma school predominates, many are named Pema or Orgyen for Padmasambhava; and children born in exile are increasingly named Tenzin in tribute to the Dalai Lama. See Tibetan Buddhism for the lama’s role.

Japan and China: household and clan customs

In Japan a baby is traditionally named at oshichiya, the celebration on the seventh night after birth. The Nipponica encyclopedia describes a household occasion: the father generally gives the name, sometimes an invited name-parent, and the baby’s first outing is often to the household gods (kami) of hearth and well. Among Buddhists, O-shichiya also means something else: the Hōonkō services held on the memorial of Shinran, founder of Jōdo Shinshū, a school of Pure Land Buddhism. The Japanese Buddhist name, kaimyō (in Jōdo Shinshū, hōmyō), was originally received in life, but is now normally given by a priest after death.

Chinese generation names, which mark a person’s place in a clan’s generations, belong to clan genealogy and the Confucian social order in Irena Kałużyńska’s study, which does not mention Buddhism. (Monastic lineage names in Chinese Buddhism are another matter, covered under Dharma names.)

Temples outside Asia: blessings, and names on request

Some temples add a Buddhist layer. Nan Tien Temple in New South Wales, a branch of the Fo Guang Shan order founded by Venerable Master Hsing Yun in 1967, runs Baby Blessing ceremonies (in 2026 on 5 April, 1 August and 25 October), and at its Baby Shower for mothers-to-be each baby can receive “a Buddhist (Dharma) name if requested”. A Zen community does something similar: the Sydney Zen Centre lists a Buddha’s Birthday and baby naming ceremony for 11 April 2027, and asks families to say “whether you would like your child named and/or welcomed to our sangha”. These are two communities’ practices as each listed them in October 2026, not a rule. For explaining a day like this to a child, see Buddhism for kids.

Buddhist baby names with dictionary meanings

Every meaning below comes from a named dictionary entry, linked so you can check it. We found no reliable data on how common any Pali or Sanskrit word is as a given name, so we make no claims about popularity.

Pali and Sanskrit names

Pali entries are from the Pali Text Society dictionary (PED); Sanskrit from Monier-Williams (MW).

Tibetan names

Meanings are from the Rangjung Yeshe dictionary; the notes on use are from Childs’s sKyid grong study.

Meanings that need care

• Upekkhā. In Buddhist usage it is equanimity. But Monier-Williams’s first senses of Sanskrit upekṣā are “overlooking, disregard, negligence, indifference, contempt, abandonment”, though it also lists “endurance, patience”; and the PED’s own entry includes “hedonic neutrality or indifference”. Parents should know both.
• Muditā. The PED derives it from mudu, “soft”, and glosses it “soft-heartedness, kindliness, sympathy”, while noting that the commentators connect it with mud, “to rejoice”; Monier-Williams gives “joy, gladness”. The origin is contested, so neither etymology should be given as settled.
• Tārā. Monier-Williams separates tārā, “a fixed star”, from tāra, “carrying across, a saviour, protector”. The Tibetan sgrol ma is glossed “She who Takes (beings) Across”, which matches the second. Both senses are attested.
• Māyā. Monier-Williams records it as the name of the mother of Gautama Buddha. But the word’s senses begin with “art, wisdom, extraordinary or supernatural power (only in the earlier language)”, then “illusion, unreality, deception, fraud, trick, sorcery”, and it notes “duplicity (with Buddhists one of the 24 minor evil passions)”. It also lists “compassion, sympathy”. The name honours a person; the word carries all of these.
• Nirvāṇa. As an adjective, Monier-Williams gives “blown or put out, extinguished (as a lamp or fire)” and “dead, deceased”; as a noun, “blowing out, extinction”, and, with Buddhists and Jainas, “absolute extinction or annihilation … of individual existence or of all desires and passions”, as well as “perfect calm or repose or happiness, highest bliss”. It names the goal of the path (see nirvana), so weigh the whole range before choosing it.

Choosing a Buddhist name for your baby

• Check the entry, not a list. Follow the dictionary link, and look at the Sanskrit as well as the Pali, as the Upekkhā and Sumanā cases show.
• Ask your own temple or teacher. Practice differs: a Tibetan lama may name the child, a Thai monk may be consulted, a Sri Lankan family may take the baby to a temple for a blessing, a Japanese family may not involve a temple at all.
• Astrology is your choice, not a requirement. Weekday letters and horoscopes are real, documented customs, not Buddhist teaching; no text we found obliges a lay family either way.
• Leave room for a Dharma name. If your child takes refuge one day, a teacher may give a Dharma name then.

For the wider picture of raising a child, see Buddhist parenting and Buddhism and family; for marriage, Buddhist weddings; and for the rest of household practice, Buddhism in everyday life.