Cool Moon Facts by Whip

Real astronomy and dated history, with sources. Documented traditions and folklore. Modern lunar astrology · symbolic, not predictive.

Full moon names

The twelve moon names, and who actually named them

Almost every page about these names gives you a list and a flat attribution to "Native American tradition". The lists disagree with each other, several of the names are plainly colonial English, one of them describes an animal that was not living in the soil it refers to, and the whole scheme was assembled by an almanac in the twentieth century. Each page here says what its name really rests on.

  1. Harvest Moonthe full moon nearest the September equinox …
  2. Blue Moonwhenever the arithmetic produces one — roughly every…
  3. Wolf MoonJanuary
  4. Snow MoonFebruary
  5. Worm MoonMarch
  6. Pink MoonApril
  7. Flower Moonthe full moon in May
  8. Strawberry MoonJune
  9. Buck MoonJuly
  10. Sturgeon MoonAugust
  11. Hunter's Moonthe full moon after the Harvest Moon — usually…
  12. Beaver MoonNovember
  13. Cold MoonDecember

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