Baby Names That Mean Moon or Night: Sourced Picks for Girls and Boys

Halloween falls on a night, and November starts the next morning. A due date in that window sends many parents looking for a name that means moon, night, or dark. The same names are worth knowing if you like the night sky and the baby is due in April.

Costume lists are easy to find this week. This article is the sourced list. Every meaning comes from our name database, every name links to the page that shows the source, and a spelling we cannot confirm sits in its own section. Star names such as Stella are in baby names that mean light. Leaf, harvest, and calendar names are in fall baby names.

Girls' names that mean moon

Five names in our data mean the moon or moonlight directly. One of them accounts for almost every American baby in the set.

Luna ("Moon," Latin) is the name this search usually means. In 2025 it ranked #27 for girls, with 6,076 babies, plus 9 boys. That is down from a peak of 8,977 girls in 2022, and far above 2015, when 2,809 girls received it at rank #112. Fifty girls were named Luna in 1995. The meaning is easy for a child to explain, and the name is common enough that a kindergarten may have two.

Chandra ("moon," Sanskrit) had its biggest girls' count in the SSA file in 1975, with 747 girls and 6 boys. In 2025 fewer than five babies of either sex received it, so the table says "Not ranked." Chandrika ("moonlight, moonshine"), Jyotsna ("moonlight"), and Poonam ("full moon," Hindi) are sourced and, in 2025, under that same five-baby line. They are the moon names a classmate is unlikely to share. Agree on a pronunciation before the birth certificate. Several are easy to mis-hear from the spelling.

Names that mean night or twilight

The popular spelling is not always the one we can source. This table is the confirmed set.

Laila ("night," Arabic) is the spelling to know if the meaning is the point. It peaked in 2008 with 2,414 girls, and in 2025 it was given to 755 girls, rank #413. In the U.S. both LAY-lah and LYE-lah are common, so pick one and stay with it. Layla, the much more popular spelling, is a separate entry and is treated with the debated names below.

Nisha ("night") was given to 13 girls in 2025. Sharvari and Yamini also mean night, and both were under five girls in 2025. Sandhya means "twilight," the right word if you want the hour rather than the whole night. Shefali means "night jasmine," the flower, so a print should say that.

Sariyah is the popular one with a longer gloss: "a cloud that comes by night." Use the whole phrase if you put it on a card. It was given to 468 girls in 2025, rank #625, up from 275 in 2015, with a peak of 518 girls in 2023. Zillah means "shade," which sits next to night and is a different word. Fifteen girls received it in 2025.

Boys' names with a night-sky meaning

The sourced moon names above are girls' names. For a boy, the clearest night-sky option is a phrase, not a single word.

Tariq means "messenger, nocturnal visitor, or morning star." "Night" alone drops two of the three ideas, so we would not print that shortening. In 2025 it was given to 107 boys, rank #1,599, against a high of 514 boys in 1998. Tareq is another spelling of the same name, given to 6 boys in 2025.

The morning-star sense is why Tariq could have gone in the light article. It is here because "nocturnal visitor" is part of the gloss. Stella, Estelle, and Estella, the straight star names, stay in baby names that mean light.

Names that mean dark or black

Some of these names mean dark directly. Others are place names or ancestor names that contain the word black, and the rest of the gloss matters.

Melanie ("black, dark," Ancient Greek) ranked #142 in 2025 with 2,074 girls, down from 3,497 in 2015 and from a 1972 peak of 6,296. It sounds soft. The meaning does not. Melany is the same name and the spelling still rising: 50 girls in 1995, 709 in 2024, and 779 in 2025, its highest count in the file, at rank #399.

Keira and Kiara are listed as "Little dark one." Kiera and Keara carry "black, dark, little dark one." Same Irish idea, four spellings, very different counts. Kiara had 1,335 girls in 2025, rank #229, up from 817 in 2015, though the peak was 4,024 girls in 1999. Keira had 469, rank #622, down from 1,312 in 2015 and from 3,022 in 2006. Kiera had 219. Keara was under five girls in 2025.

The boys' name usually paired with this set is Kieran. Our data marks that origin debated, so Kieran stays out of the table. Popularity is separate from the meaning: 817 boys and 11 girls in 2025, boys' rank #389, the highest combined count in the file.

Douglas means "black" plus "stream." The black is the water in a Scottish place name, not a personality. It was given to 16,730 boys in 1957, and to 308 in 2025, rank #807, up slightly from 286 in 2024.

Blakely and Blakeley mean "black" plus "woodland clearing." Parents are using Blakely, mostly for girls: 1,638 girls and 8 boys in 2025, girls' rank #191, down from 1,892 girls in 2024 and up from 921 in 2015. Blakeley had 69 girls. The rank in the table follows whichever sex had more babies.

Donovan means "descendant of (a person named) brown & black." The color word is inside an ancestor's name. Donovan had 609 boys in 2025, rank #496, about half of the 1,304 boys in 2015, and well below a 2003 peak of 2,211. Nigel ("slightly black") had 71 boys, rank #2,088. Maurice is glossed "Moor; dark, swarthy": a people, from the Latin name for someone from Mauretania, with a complexion sense alongside it. Maurice had 220 boys in 2025, rank #1,020. Duff ("dark") and Sunil ("very black or blue, dark") were both under five babies in 2025.

Goddess names people file under the moon

Three familiar names land on moon lists because of a goddess, while the gloss we can print says something else.

Diana is the Roman goddess of the hunt, and Roman tradition also links her with the moon. Our data's meaning is "Divine," not "moon." Diana ranked #244 in 2025 with 1,277 girls, up from 1,091 in 2015 and far from 9,433 girls in 1957.

Cynthia means "of Mount Cynthus" on Delos, birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. Artemis was associated with the moon, which is why the name keeps appearing on moon lists. The meaning we would print is the mountain epithet. Cynthia had 39,340 girls in 1957 and 247 in 2025, rank #1,014.

Selene is the Greek goddess of the moon, and the name means "light," which is why she is in the light article rather than the moon table. She is having her biggest year in the SSA file: 469 girls in 2025, rank #623, up from 426 in 2024 and 214 in 2015. Choose any of the three for the sound and the story, and leave the word "moon" off a keepsake.

Popular spellings we will not call night or dark

A Halloween search turns these up first. They are popular, and our pages mark the origin debated, so no meaning goes on the announcement.

Layla ranked #36 in 2025 with 5,338 girls, down from a 2019 peak of 6,523. Many lists gloss it as night because it looks like Laila. Our data does not treat that spelling as settled, so Layla is off the night table. Leilah is debated too, with 125 girls in 2025, rank #1,660. When the meaning is the reason, Laila is the spelling we can source.

Ayla ranked #77 with 3,149 girls. A moonlight theory circulates, and the name page does not state it as fact. Blake is debated because the usual stories disagree: dark, or pale and shining. In 2025 Blake was given to 1,080 boys and 1,035 girls. The table shows the boys' rank, #316, only because that count is slightly higher. Kieran is in this table for the same reason it was left out of the dark one.

Moon, night, and dark names by the numbers

Boys and girls are added together for the 29 names in the moon, night, and dark tables. Diana, Cynthia, Selene, and the debated spellings are excluded. A name given to fewer than five babies of one sex in a year is missing from the SSA file, so rare names add nothing in those years and the true total is a little higher.

Since 2005 the group has stayed between about 15,000 and 17,000 babies a year. Which name did the work has changed. In 1995 the moon names were 194 babies, most of them Chandra. In 2025 the five moon names totaled 6,085, and 6,076 of those were girls named Luna.

The drop from 2024 to 2025 is 1,671 babies, mostly Luna (7,173 in 2024, 6,085 in 2025). Laila, Sariyah, and Tariq make up nearly all of the night-table counts. The dark names are the spread-out part of the total.

Moves from 2015 to 2025, for the sex that uses each name most:

Luna, Blakely, and Kiara climbed. Melanie, Laila, Keira, and Donovan fell, and each is still given hundreds of times a year.

How to choose a night-sky name you will still like in July

The child has the name in every month. Five checks:

1. Keep the birthday and the name separate. Luna, Melanie, and Douglas do not announce a date. In U.S. births from 1994 to 2014, October 31 ranks 357th of 366 days, with 1 as the most common. An average Halloween in that span had about 10,030 births, against about 11,175 on an average day. Any date is on the birthday tool.
2. Print the whole gloss. Tariq is three ideas. Sariyah is a cloud that comes by night. Donovan names an ancestor. Maurice names a people. Douglas is a black stream. The headings on this page are for sorting. The caption on a card should match the name page.
3. Match the spelling to the meaning you want. Laila is sourced as night, and Layla is debated. Keira is sourced, and Kieran is debated. Then hear the full name in the full name tester.
4. Say Chandra, Jyotsna, Sandhya, Sharvari, and Shefali out loud before you commit. Relatives will reshuffle anything they have to guess. If the moon name works better in the middle, the middle-name guide covers rhythm and initials. Henry Chandra, Maya Nisha, and Elias Laila are the shape to test.
5. Read the curve. Luna is #27 and off its 2022 peak. Melany, Kiara, and Selene are the names here that grew into 2025. Every name page has the SSA history.

A name bracket compares two finalists, a shortlist lets family vote by link, and a partner match keeps the overlap. The name generator suggests more names in the same style. For a late-October or early-November due date, the due date calculator gives the date and the trimester marks.

Putting the meaning on the welcome

A sourced gloss is a useful extra line, and only when you would actually say it:

• Wall art: "Luna: moon," "Laila: night," or "Melanie: dark." Skip the caption when the gloss is a phrase you would not want shortened.
• Announcements: name, date, and a meaning only when the name page states one. The wording guide has the rest of the card.
• Middle names: Chandra, Nisha, or Zillah behind a more familiar first name.

The Baby Kit puts the name, the meaning, and the origin on the announcements and the wall art together, in one style and palette.

Sources

• Meanings: our name database. Entries marked "Wiktionary" are adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0). Each name page links its source, and our sources page explains the method. Debated origins are labeled on the name page and are not stated as fact here.
• Popularity: U.S. Social Security Administration baby name data, 1940 to 2025. Group totals sum the 29 names in the moon, night, and dark tables, boys and girls together. Counts under five babies per sex per year are absent from the file.
• Birthdays: U.S. births by date, 1994 to 2014, compiled by FiveThirtyEight from CDC/NCHS (1994–1999) and SSA (2000–2014). October 31's rank is the figure behind our birthday tool. Rank 1 is the most common day.