Zodiac Signs in Urdu: All 12 Names & Meanings

The zodiac signs in Urdu tell a story about how knowledge moved. These twelve names are Arabic. The Arabic names are translations of Greek ones. And the Greek ones came from Babylon. Urdu is holding the far end of a chain that runs back four thousand years, and it took a completely different route from the language spoken next door.

That is the striking thing here. Hindi and Urdu are close enough to be mutually intelligible in conversation — and their zodiac vocabulary shares nothing at all. Hindi took Sanskrit names: Meṣh, Vṛiṣhabh, Mithun. Urdu took Arabic ones: Hamal, Saur, Jauza. Same sky, same signs, two entirely separate scholarly traditions.

All 12 Zodiac Signs in Urdu

The Urdu word for a zodiac sign is برج (burj), which means a tower or a mansion — the same word as in the Burj Khalifa. The twelve are the burūj, the twelve mansions of the sky.

These are short names — most are a single syllable or two, which is characteristic of Arabic roots and makes them noticeably more compact than the Sanskrit or Germanic equivalents.

Two Signs That Reveal Where the Names Came From

Most of the twelve are straightforward translations. Two are not, and they are the fingerprints of the transmission route.

Virgo in Urdu: سنبلہ (Sunbula)

Sunbula does not mean virgin, maiden, or woman. It means an ear of grain — a wheat stalk.

This is not an error. The brightest star in the constellation Virgo is Spica, and spica is Latin for an ear of grain; the classical figure is a maiden holding a sheaf of wheat. Arabic astronomers named the sign after the wheat rather than the woman, and Urdu inherited that choice. So while every European language, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Hindi all name a female figure here, Urdu names what she is carrying. See the Virgo profile.

Aquarius in Urdu: دلو (Dalw)

Dalw is a bucket or a leather water-skin — the vessel you lower into a well.

Urdu therefore joins Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Hindi in making Aquarius an object rather than a person, and it picked the least ornamental object of the set. Vietnamese has a precious vase, Hindi has a ritual pot, Korean has a water bottle, Urdu has a well-bucket. See the Aquarius profile.

The Two Signs Named for the Weapon

Sagittarius in Urdu: قوس (Qaus)

Qaus means a bow, or an arc — it is the word behind qaus-e-quzah, a rainbow. No archer, no centaur, no shooter: just the bow. Urdu and Hindi agree exactly here, with Hindi’s Dhanu also meaning simply “bow”, and they are the only two languages on this site that name Sagittarius after the object alone. See the Sagittarius profile.

Libra in Urdu: میزان (Meezan)

Meezan is a balance or set of scales, and it carries weight beyond astronomy — it appears in Islamic theology as the scale on which deeds are weighed. It is also used in modern Urdu for a balance sheet. The Libra profile covers the sign.

The Remaining Eight Urdu Star Signs

• حمل (Hamal) — a lamb or young ram. The name survives in English astronomy: Hamal is the brightest star in the constellation Aries. The Aries profile.
• ثور (Saur) — a bull or ox. Note the initial letter ث, a sound Urdu renders as s though it is a th in Arabic. The Taurus profile.
• جوزا (Jauza) — from a root meaning to pair or to be central. It is the same word behind al-Jauza, an old Arabic name for the Orion region, which gave English the star name Betelgeuse. The Gemini profile.
• سرطان (Saratan) — a crab. As in Latin, Italian, Spanish, German and English, the same word also means cancer the disease. The Cancer profile.
• اسد (Asad) — a lion. A common given name across the Urdu- and Arabic-speaking world. The Leo profile.
• عقرب (Aqrab) — a scorpion. Begins with ع (ain), a consonant produced deep in the throat with no English equivalent. The Scorpio profile.
• جدی (Jadi) — a young goat, a kid. No sea-monster and no fish tail: Urdu took the goat, like the European languages, and unlike Hindi’s Makar. The Capricorn profile.
• حوت (Hoot) — a large fish or a whale. Singular, and notably bigger than the Latin plural Pisces: the same word appears in the Quranic account of Jonah. The Pisces profile.

Reading the Urdu Script

Urdu is written right to left in Nastaliq, a flowing calligraphic style that differs visibly from the blockier Naskh used for Arabic. A few practical notes:

• Short vowels are usually not written. حمل carries the consonants h-m-l; the reader supplies the vowels to get Hamal. This is why transliterations vary — you will see Hamal, Haml and Hamel for the same word.
• Letters change shape depending on position in the word, so the same letter may look quite different at the start, middle and end.
• ث, س and ص are three distinct letters that Urdu all pronounces roughly as s, which matters for spelling and not for speech.
• If you are pasting these names into a website, check that your theme handles right-to-left text and does not reverse or break the joining.

Talking About Zodiac Signs in Urdu

The phrases:

• آپ کا برج کیا ہے؟ — Aap ka burj kya hai? — What’s your zodiac sign?
• میرا برج عقرب ہے۔ — Mera burj Aqrab hai. — My sign is Scorpio.
• Sitaron ka haal — literally “the condition of the stars”, and the standard heading for a horoscope column in Urdu newspapers.

Note علم نجوم (ilm-e-nujoom), “the science of the stars”. The phrasing preserves the period when astronomy and astrology were one discipline — the same era in which these twelve Arabic names were fixed.

Burj and Sitaron Ka Haal in Pakistan and India

Urdu horoscope columns run in the major Pakistani dailies and across Urdu-language television, usually under the heading sitaron ka haal. The register is measured and somewhat formal compared with the chatty tone of a Brazilian or Vietnamese column.

One practical point for anyone writing this content: Urdu-language media frequently use the English sign names — Aries, Taurus, Scorpio — transliterated into Urdu script rather than the classical Arabic names above. Both circulate. The Arabic burj names are the traditional and more formal set; the English ones are common in younger and more casual media. If you are producing Urdu content, expect readers to recognise both.

Frequently Asked Questions

Zodiac Signs in Urdu and Its Closest Comparison

The sharpest contrast on this site is between this page and the zodiac signs in Hindi — two languages of the same region, mutually intelligible in conversation, with not one sign name in common. Urdu’s Jadi takes the goat like the European languages, while Hindi’s Makar keeps the sea-monster that Chinese and Vietnamese also inherited.

All languages: zodiac signs in different languages.