Ashlesha आश्लेषा · pada 1 of 4
Ashlesha Pada 1 Baby Names — Di (डी)
9 names with meanings for a child born with the Moon between Cancer 16°40′ – 20°00′ — the first quarter of Ashlesha, whose syllable is Di. Moon sign Cancer, navamsa Sagittarius.
- Pada
- first of four · Ashlesha is nakshatra 9 of 27
- Naming syllable
- Di डी — written Dee in a panchang table
- Span
- Cancer 16°40′ – 20°00′ · 106°40′ – 110°00′ sidereal
- Moon sign
- Cancer (Karka)
- Navamsa
- Sagittarius (Dhanu) — the 6th navamsa from Cancer
- Names listed
- 4 boys' names, 5 girls' names
- Position in Cancer
- the sixth of the sign’s nine pada syllables
- Nakshatra lord
- Mercury · presiding deity Sarpas (Nagas) · symbol Coiled snake
Names beginning Di for Ashlesha pada 1
Ashlesha's padas are the retroflex ड, which begins almost no inherited Sanskrit word. Pandits and panchang tables substitute the dental द, so the Di- names are the ones used for this pada.
Nothing is lost in that substitution and nothing about it is a compromise: it is what panchang tables print and what pandits use, so Di is the syllable a family naming an Ashlesha pada 1 child is actually given. The retroflex form survives in the tables because the pada boundary is a fact about the zodiac, and the dental names beneath it because the boundary has to be spoken.
Di is what the first quarter of Ashlesha is assigned — and it is assigned to Purva Bhadrapada pada 4 as well, so that page lists the same names from a different point in the zodiac. Any of the names below satisfies the rite for a birth between Cancer 16°40′ – 20°00′, and the meaning matters as much as the sound: a name is used for a lifetime and the gloss is the part a child will be told.
Boys' names — 4
| Name | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Divyansh | a part of the divine |
| Dinesh | lord of the day — the sun |
| Divakar | the day-maker — the sun |
| Digvijay | victory over all directions |
Girls' names — 5
| Name | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Divya | divine |
| Diksha | initiation |
| Dipti | radiance |
| Dipika | a lamp |
| Diya | a lamp |
Where the Cancer naming letters come from
A panchang prints nine syllables against Cancer — Hi Hu He Ho Da Di Du De Do — usually with no explanation of why there are nine. They are the pada syllables that fall inside the sign. There are 108 padas and twelve signs, 108 divides by twelve exactly, and so every sign holds precisely nine padas with nothing left over. The rashi list and the pada syllable are not two competing traditions; the first is the second, collected by sign.
Ashlesha pada 1 is the sixth of the nine, contributing Di at 106°40′ – 110°00′ sidereal. That is worth knowing if a family has been given the rashi list rather than the pada: any of the nine satisfies a Cancer birth, so a family working from the list alone has eight usable syllables, while a pandit working from a birth time narrows it to the one this pada owns.
| # | Syllable | From | Names listed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hi ही | Punarvasu pada 4 | 7 |
| 2 | Hu हु | Pushya pada 1 | 1 |
| 3 | He हे | Pushya pada 2 | 7 |
| 4 | Ho हो | Pushya pada 3 | none |
| 5 | Da द | Pushya pada 4 | 10 |
| 6 | Di डी | Ashlesha pada 1 — this pada | 9 |
| 7 | Du डू | Ashlesha pada 2 | 3 |
| 8 | De डे | Ashlesha pada 3 | 10 |
| 9 | Do डो / दो | Ashlesha pada 4 | 1 |
The other three padas of Ashlesha
A nakshatra is 13°20′ wide and a pada is a quarter of that, 3°20′ — so the first quarter of Ashlesha occupies Cancer 16°40′ – 20°00′ and its other three sit either side of it. What the four share is Ashlesha itself: Mercury as lord, Sarpas (Nagas) as presiding deity, the coiled snake as symbol, and a character read as hypnotic, wise, secretive. What separates them is the navamsa and the naming syllable, which is Di for pada 1 and Du, De and Do for the others.
| Pada | Syllable | Moon sign | Navamsa | Names |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pada 1 — this page | Di डी | Cancer | Sagittarius | 9 |
| Pada 2 | Du डू | Cancer | Capricorn | 3 |
| Pada 3 | De डे | Cancer | Aquarius | 10 |
| Pada 4 | Do डो / दो | Cancer | Pisces | 1 |
All four listed together, with the full name tables and the Ashlesha profile, are on the Ashlesha baby names page. The pada follows from the Moon’s exact longitude, so it needs the time and place of birth — the baby name finder resolves it from a birth date, and the Ashlesha pada 1 page covers what this quarter means beyond the name.
Ashlesha pada 1 — common questions
What letter should an Ashlesha pada 1 baby's name start with?
Di — written Dee in the pronunciation column of a panchang table, in Devanagari डी. That syllable belongs to the first pada of Ashlesha specifically, not to the whole nakshatra: each of the four padas carries a different one, and Ashlesha's other three are Du for pada 2, De for pada 3 and Do for pada 4.
How many names begin with Di?
9 names, 4 for boys and 5 for girls, each with its meaning — that is what Di carries, and so what the first pada of Ashlesha offers. The count is uneven across the 108 padas by nature: the syllables come from dividing the zodiac, not from asking what Sanskrit allows at the start of a word, so Ashlesha pada 1 gets what Di actually begins.
Which rashi is Ashlesha pada 1?
Cancer — Karka, entered at 106°40′ – 110°00′ sidereal longitude. For all four padas: Ashlesha sits wholly inside Cancer, so unlike the nine straddling nakshatras it has one Moon sign regardless of pada. What pada 1 adds is its place in the sign — sixth of the nine Cancer syllables, Di.
Are all nine Cancer naming syllables different sounds?
Yes — Cancer is one of the eleven signs whose nine padas give nine distinct spellings, so the syllable Di is not duplicated anywhere else in Hi Hu He Ho Da Di Du De Do. That is not true of every sign: Sagittarius carries Dha twice, for the dental and retroflex forms, and yields eight spellings from its nine padas. Within Cancer, Ashlesha pada 1 owns Di outright.
Does the navamsa change the name for Ashlesha pada 1?
Not the syllable. The syllable comes from the pada, and for Ashlesha pada 1 it is Di. The navamsa — Sagittarius here, the 6th navamsa counted from Cancer — is read for the child's temperament and for chart work rather than for the naming letter.
Naming an Ashlesha pada 1 child?
The syllable is fixed by the pada, but the namakaran itself is fixed by the chart and by the day — which is a reading rather than a table. Our pandits do both.