Full Moon Names by Month

Full moon names are the traditional names given to each month’s full moon, from the Wolf Moon in January to the Cold Moon in December. Each name follows the calendar month in which the full moon falls, with one exception: the Harvest Moon.

What are the 12 full moon names by month?

The 12 traditional full moon names are the Wolf, Snow, Worm, Pink, Flower, Strawberry, Buck, Sturgeon, Harvest, Hunter’s, Beaver and Cold Moon, one for each month from January to December. Most come from American almanacs, which mixed Native American, Colonial American and European names.

The meanings follow the Old Farmer’s Almanac and the Farmers’ Almanac, which also record the alternative names. Both almanacs gathered the alternatives from many sources. Different Native nations had their own names for the same months, so no single list is the “original” one.

The same name can even belong to different months. The Old Farmer’s Almanac lists Cold Moon as an alternative for January and Snow Moon as one for December. It also includes both Corn Moon and Harvest Moon among the alternatives for August.

When are the next named full moons?

The next 12 full moons are listed below with the traditional name this site assigns to each, plus flags for supermoons, Blue Moons and lunar eclipses.

Times are in UTC, and each name follows the UTC date of the full moon instant. For a live countdown and viewing tips, see the next full moon page. A flag marks each supermoon, a full moon close to perigee, the nearest point of the Moon’s orbit.

The name and the flags describe separate things. The name comes from the calendar month, the supermoon flag from the Moon’s distance, and the eclipse flag from Earth’s shadow. The total lunar eclipse of January 21, 2019, for example, fell on a Wolf Moon that was also a supermoon.

Why does a named full moon fall on a different date each year?

A named full moon moves through its month because 12 lunar cycles last about 354 days, so each name arrives about 11 days earlier than the year before, until it jumps back almost three weeks.

The Wolf Moon shows the pattern. It fell on January 25, 2024, January 13, 2025 and January 3, 2026. Once the drift would push a full moon before the 1st of its month, that month’s full moon comes from the following lunar cycle instead, about 19 days later in the calendar than the year before.

The dates repeat on a 19-year rhythm known as the Metonic cycle. Exactly 235 lunar cycles last 6,939.69 days, almost the same as 19 years of 365.24 days, which add up to 6,939.60 days. A named full moon therefore returns to nearly the same date every 19 years: the Wolf Moon fell on January 3 in both 2007 and 2026.

Where do the full moon names come from?

The full moon names used today were popularized in the 20th century by American almanacs: the Farmers’ Almanac, which began publishing them in the 1930s, and the Old Farmer’s Almanac. The Farmers’ Almanac describes its list as a mixture of Indigenous North American traditions, colonial American customs and European traditions.

The 12-name list is therefore an almanac compilation, not the calendar of a single people. Native nations named the moons of the year after their own seasons, plants and animals. The same month could carry many different names across the continent.

Several names reflect the seasons of northern North America. The Snow Moon recalls the heavy February snow across the north of the continent. The Sturgeon Moon recalls the lake sturgeon of the Great Lakes, which were easiest to catch around the August full moon.

Other names came from Europe or from early settlers. The Old Farmer’s Almanac notes that Wolf Moon is thought to have English origins and arrived in North America with European settlers. The Hot Moon, an alternative name for June, was documented by Captain Jonathan Carver in the 18th century.

How is the Harvest Moon chosen?

The Harvest Moon is the full moon nearest the September equinox, not simply the September full moon, so it can fall anywhere from the second week of September to the first week of October.

Between 2000 and 2099, the Harvest Moon falls in October in 21 years, about one year in five, counted by UTC date. Its position decides the names of the full moons on either side:

The year 2025 shows the October pattern. The Corn Moon fell on September 7, and the Harvest Moon came on October 7 at 03:48 UTC, which was the evening of October 6 in the Americas. The Beaver Moon of November 5 then also carried the Hunter’s Moon name.

The Hunter’s Moon follows the harvest. The Farmers’ Almanac links it to harvested fields and bright autumn moonlight, which made animals easier to spot. The Old Farmer’s Almanac describes it as the time when game is fattened for winter and provisions are laid in.

The Harvest Moon is the only traditional name tied to an astronomical event rather than to the calendar month. Around the Harvest Moon, the Moon rises only about 20–30 minutes later each evening at mid-northern latitudes, instead of the usual 50 minutes. Bright moonlight therefore follows sunset for several evenings in a row.

What is a full moon called when a month has two?

When a calendar month has two full moons, both keep the month’s traditional name on this site, and the second is also called a Blue Moon. May 2026 is an example: the Flower Moon of May 1 was followed by a second Flower Moon on May 31, which was that month’s Blue Moon. Under this monthly rule a Blue Moon is never a Snow Moon, because February is too short to hold two full moons.

The older seasonal rule works differently. The Maine Farmers’ Almanac tied its names to the seasons rather than to calendar months. When a season between an equinox and a solstice held four full moons instead of the usual three, the almanac called the third one a Blue Moon. That rule kept the remaining names in step with the equinoxes and solstices.

A 1946 article in Sky & Telescope misread the rule as the second full moon in a calendar month, and that meaning is now the more common one. The page on the Blue Moon covers both definitions and lists the next dates.

Why do calendars sometimes give a different name?

Calendars give different names for two reasons: almanacs choose different main names, and the date of a full moon depends on the time zone.

Almanac choices vary. The Old Farmer’s Almanac lists Corn Moon as the main September name and applies Harvest Moon by the equinox rule. This site lists Harvest Moon for September, with Corn Moon as the alternative. timeanddate lists the October full moon as the Hunter’s Moon or Blood Moon.

Time zones move full moons across month boundaries. The full moon of January 31, 2018 came at 13:27 UTC, which made it a Wolf Moon and a Blue Moon by UTC date. In Sydney the same instant was 12:27 a.m. on February 1, so local calendars there placed it in February. This site names every full moon by its UTC date, so each date carries one name worldwide.

Do the full moon names fit the Southern Hemisphere?

The traditional names describe northern seasons, so they do not match the seasons in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa or South America. There, the Snow Moon rises in late summer and the Strawberry Moon in early winter. This site uses the same names worldwide, by calendar month. Its tables show UTC, so readers in Australia and New Zealand add 8 to 13 hours to get local time.

The astronomy behind the Harvest Moon is mirrored. In the Southern Hemisphere, the slow-rising autumn full moon is the one nearest the March equinox. In Melbourne, moonrise around that full moon comes only about 21–31 minutes later each evening, compared with 64–77 minutes around the September full moon (2023–2026, computed with this site’s lunar engine).

Readers who prefer names that match local seasons can shift the list by six months. That pairs the Harvest Moon with the full moon nearest the March equinox, which falls in March or April.

Which other traditions name or use the full moon?

Beyond the almanac list, the full moon still sets dates in religious calendars, and several alternative names point to European festivals.

• Easter. Easter falls on the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs on or after the spring equinox. The Western church calculation uses a fixed equinox date of March 21 and a calculated full moon rather than the observed one, so the result does not depend on time zone.
• Lenten Moon and Moon After Yule. These alternative names for the March and January full moons refer to Lent and to Yule, the old midwinter festival.
• The Maine Farmers’ Almanac seasons. The almanac’s seasonal naming, described above, anchored each name to an equinox or solstice rather than to a calendar month.