Janma Nakshatra finder
Your janma nakshatra is the nakshatra the moon stood in at the moment you were born. It is what a family uses for birthday rituals, what the first syllable of a name is taken from, and what is quoted when a horoscope is matched.
This tool computes it. Enter the date, the time and the place of birth, and it reports where the moon actually was — the nakshatra, the quarter of it (the pada), the janma rashi, and the tithi. Nothing is stored and nothing is sent anywhere; the calculation runs in your browser.
How this is computed
The moon's position is computed for the exact instant you enter, converted from the local wall-clock time of the place of birth into a universal instant, and then expressed in the sidereal frame using the Lahiri ayanamsa — the same method and the same ayanamsa used everywhere else on this site. The sidereal zodiac is divided into twenty-seven nakshatras of 13°20' each, and each of those into four padas of 3°20'. Which pada the moon falls in gives the naming syllable.
Why the time of birth matters
The moon covers a whole nakshatra in roughly a day and a pada in about six hours, so an approximate birth time is often enough to fix the nakshatra but not the pada — and the pada is what decides the name syllable. If the recorded time is uncertain, treat a pada near a boundary as provisional and check with your family purohit. Where only a date is known, enter a plausible time and read the nakshatra rather than the pada.