Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning

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Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning is a book written by Richard Hinckley Allen. First published in 1899 as Star-Names and Their Meanings, this work collected the origins of the names of stars and constellations from a panoply of sources, some primary but most secondary; also telling briefly the various myths and folklore connected with stars in the Greco-Roman tradition; as well as in the Arabic, Babylonian, Indian and Chinese traditions, for which, however, modern criticism having taken it to task, it is largely superseded.

The book also provides cursory details about astronomy, for which it is not, however, a useful reference, in part due to the great strides taken by astronomy since its publication. Similarly, astrology and its history are dealt with briefly in the introduction, and some other basic astrological references are scattered throughout the book, although downplayed by the author who is by and large scornful of the subject. There is no direct modern equivalent, although Ian Ridpath's Star Tales [1] deals with traditional Greek and Roman constellation mythology, while A Dictionary of Modern Star Names by Paul Kunitzsch and Tim Smart (Sky Publishing, 2006) is an authoritative source on the origin of star names.