Full Moon Names: From the Wolf Moon to the Cold Moon, Every Month Explained

“The Strawberry Moon shines tonight!” Headlines like this appear every month, each time with a different poetic name. There’s no marketing behind them, but an old tradition: Long before paper calendars existed, people counted time from full moon to full moon, giving each moon of the year a name that described what was happening in nature at the time. Here you’ll find all twelve names and their origins, along with explanations of three famous special cases: the supermoon, blood moon, and Blue Moon.

Where do full moon names come from?

The names widely used today come mainly from Indigenous peoples of North America, such as the Algonquin. They became popular through American almanacs such as the Farmer's Almanac. There is also a second, old European and German tradition of monthly names (Lenzmond, Wonnemond, Nebelmond), often based on the same observations of nature. Today, the two traditions happily overlap. There’s no “right” or “wrong” here.

What is each month’s full moon called?

A lovely detail: Pink Moon and Strawberry Moon don’t describe the color of the Moon, but what blooms and ripens at that time of year. If the Moon does appear reddish near the horizon, it’s because of the way light scatters in the atmosphere. This can happen in any month.

What are a supermoon, blood moon, and Blue Moon?

Supermoon: The Moon’s orbit is an ellipse, so sometimes the Moon is closer to Earth (perigee) and sometimes farther away (apogee). When a full moon coincides roughly with its closest approach to Earth, it appears a little larger and brighter: a supermoon. The term, by the way, didn’t come from astronomy. It was coined by astrologer Richard Nolle in 1979. The difference in size is real, but to the naked eye it’s subtler than photos often suggest.

Blood moon: This is the popular name for the Moon during a total lunar eclipse. When the Moon is completely in Earth’s shadow, the only sunlight that reaches it has been filtered through Earth’s atmosphere. The atmosphere scatters the blue light and lets the red light through. The Moon then glows copper-red. You can read about how an eclipse unfolds in our article on the lunar eclipse on 28 August 2026.

Blue Moon: It isn’t a blue Moon, but a calendar quirk: Because a lunar cycle lasts only about 29.5 days, two full moons sometimes fall in the same calendar month. The second is then called a Blue Moon. An older definition refers to the third of four full moons in a season. This is also where the English expression “once in a blue moon” comes from, meaning something that happens rarely.

The Harvest Moon has one more nuance: Strictly speaking, it isn’t simply the September full moon, but the full moon that falls closest to the autumnal equinox, usually in September, but sometimes in October.

When is the next full moon?

Find all the dates and times, along with the zodiac signs, in our guides: the Moon Calendar 2026 and the Moon Calendar 2027. You can also see which sign each full moon is in, because that’s exactly where astrology comes in.

What the Moon reveals in your birth chart

Full moon names tell the story of nature’s rhythms. Astrology goes a step further and explores what the Moon speaks to in you. Your Moon sign describes your emotional world: how you feel, what gives you a sense of security, and how you recharge. And your personal Yearly Horoscope shows which lunar phases and celestial movements will accompany you in the coming year. It’s calculated individually from your birth chart and interpreted with warmth, as a companion through all twelve moons of the year.