Bharani भरणी · pada 2 of 4
Bharani Pada 2 Baby Names — Lu (लु)
1 name with meanings for a child born with the Moon between Aries 16°40′ – 20°00′ — the second quarter of Bharani, whose syllable is Lu. Moon sign Aries, navamsa Virgo.
- Pada
- second of four · Bharani is nakshatra 2 of 27
- Naming syllable
- Lu लु
- Span
- Aries 16°40′ – 20°00′ · 16°40′ – 20°00′ sidereal
- Moon sign
- Aries (Mesha)
- Navamsa
- Virgo (Kanya) — the 6th navamsa from Aries
- Names listed
- 0 boys' names, 1 girl's name
- Position in Aries
- the sixth of the sign’s nine pada syllables
- Nakshatra lord
- Venus · presiding deity Yama · symbol Yoni
Names beginning Lu for Bharani pada 2
Almost nothing begins with लु. The names in circulation for this pada — Lucky, Lubdh, Luvleen — are respectively English, a word meaning greedy, and Punjabi built on Lav.
Lu is what the second quarter of Bharani is assigned, and to no other pada of the 108. Any of the names below satisfies the rite for a birth between Aries 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.
Girls' names — 1
| Name | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Lumbini | the grove where the Buddha was born |
There is no established boy's name beginning Lu in common use, so for a son born in Bharani pada 2 the three substitutes below apply exactly as they would for an empty pada. This is commoner than the printed lists suggest — 6 of the 108 padas carry boys’ names only and 7 carry girls’ names only.
Where the Aries naming letters come from
A panchang prints nine syllables against Aries — Chu Che Cho La Li Lu Le Lo A — 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.
Bharani pada 2 is the sixth of the nine, contributing Lu at 16°40′ – 20°00′ sidereal. That is worth knowing if a family has been given the rashi list rather than the pada: any of the nine satisfies an Aries 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 | Chu चु | Ashwini pada 1 | 2 |
| 2 | Che चे | Ashwini pada 2 | 5 |
| 3 | Cho चो | Ashwini pada 3 | none |
| 4 | La ला | Ashwini pada 4 | 10 |
| 5 | Li ली | Bharani pada 1 | 6 |
| 6 | Lu लु | Bharani pada 2 — this pada | 1 |
| 7 | Le ले | Bharani pada 3 | 3 |
| 8 | Lo लो | Bharani pada 4 | 6 |
| 9 | A अ | Krittika pada 1 | 14 |
The three substitutes, for Bharani pada 2
The 108 syllables come from dividing the zodiac rather than from asking what Sanskrit allows at the start of a word, so some land on sounds that begin few names or none. Where that happens the tradition substitutes, and three routes are recognised. Below, each is carried out for this pada rather than stated as a rule.
1 · Another pada of Bharani
Another pada of the same nakshatra. The pada fixes the syllable, but the nakshatra as a whole is what the naming rite is built on, and using a sibling pada's syllable is the commonest accommodation. For Bharani that means pada 1, whose syllable Li carries 6 names, pada 3, whose syllable Le carries 3 names and pada 4, whose syllable Lo carries 6 names. A pandit will usually offer this first, because the naming rite is built on the nakshatra and all four padas belong to it.
2 · Another syllable of Aries
Any syllable of the same Moon sign. Each rashi covers either two and a quarter nakshatras or nine padas, so this widens the choice to roughly nine syllables. Aries holds nine pada syllables and seven of the other eight carry names, so a Bharani pada 2 birth has no shortage of options inside its own Moon sign. The fullest are A (Krittika pada 1), La (Ashwini pada 4) and Li (Bharani pada 1) — 14 names apiece or close to it.
3 · A name of Yama
A name of the nakshatra's presiding deity, which sidesteps the syllable question altogether — Rudra for Ardra, Indra for Jyeshtha, Vishnu for Shravana. Bharani is presided over by Yama, so this route is open regardless of what Lu does or does not begin, and it is the one families choose when they want the nakshatra named in the child rather than merely encoded in a sound. None of the three is treated as a lesser choice.
The other three padas of Bharani
A nakshatra is 13°20′ wide and a pada is a quarter of that, 3°20′ — so the second quarter of Bharani occupies Aries 16°40′ – 20°00′ and its other three sit either side of it. What the four share is Bharani itself: Venus as lord, Yama as presiding deity, the yoni as symbol, and a character read as transformative, intense, creative. What separates them is the navamsa and the naming syllable, which is Lu for pada 2 and Li, Le and Lo for the others.
| Pada | Syllable | Moon sign | Navamsa | Names |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pada 1 | Li ली | Aries | Leo | 6 |
| Pada 2 — this page | Lu लु | Aries | Virgo | 1 |
| Pada 3 | Le ले | Aries | Libra | 3 |
| Pada 4 | Lo लो | Aries | Scorpio | 6 |
All four listed together, with the full name tables and the Bharani profile, are on the Bharani 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 Bharani pada 2 page covers what this quarter means beyond the name.
Bharani pada 2 — common questions
What letter should a Bharani pada 2 baby's name start with?
Lu, in Devanagari लु. That syllable belongs to the second pada of Bharani specifically, not to the whole nakshatra: each of the four padas carries a different one, and Bharani's other three are Li for pada 1, Le for pada 3 and Lo for pada 4.
How many names begin with Lu?
1 name, 0 for boys and 1 for a girl, each with its meaning — that is what Lu carries, and so what the second pada of Bharani 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 Bharani pada 2 gets what Lu actually begins. There is no established boy's name beginning Lu, so the substitutes below apply for a son.
Which rashi is Bharani pada 2?
Aries — Mesha, entered at 16°40′ – 20°00′ sidereal longitude. For all four padas: Bharani sits wholly inside Aries, so unlike the nine straddling nakshatras it has one Moon sign regardless of pada. What pada 2 adds is its place in the sign — sixth of the nine Aries syllables, Lu.
Are all nine Aries naming syllables different sounds?
Yes — Aries is one of the eleven signs whose nine padas give nine distinct spellings, so the syllable Lu is not duplicated anywhere else in Chu Che Cho La Li Lu Le Lo A. 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 Aries, Bharani pada 2 owns Lu outright.
Does the navamsa change the name for Bharani pada 2?
Not the syllable. The syllable comes from the pada, and for Bharani pada 2 it is Lu. The navamsa — Virgo here, the 6th navamsa counted from Aries — is read for the child's temperament and for chart work rather than for the naming letter.
Naming a Bharani pada 2 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.