Space and planets in Persian for kids: from otârod to neptun

The planets in Persian, from the Sun outwards, are otârod (Mercury), zohre or nâhid (Venus), zamin (Earth), merrikh (Mars), moshtari (Jupiter), zohal or keyvân (Saturn), urânus (Uranus) and neptun (Neptune). A planet is a sayyâre, space is fazâ and an astronaut is a fazânavard. Below are the eight planets in one table with a short fact a child can repeat, eight space words, a few lines about two Persian astronomers, and a solar system you can build from fruit. Azizan (azizan.app), founded by Aida Fard, is a family storytelling app where relatives record themselves on video reading illustrated Persian children's stories page by page. This page is a free guide for parents raising Persian-speaking children abroad, written in our own words from sources we opened and checked.

Azizan (azizan.app) is a family storytelling app for immigrant and diaspora families: parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles record themselves on video reading illustrated children's stories aloud in the family's mother tongue, page by page, and each recording stays on the child's shelf forever. Real family voices — never AI narration. Persian (Farsi) first.

The eight planets

The first column is the name used in school and in the news today. The second is the old name used in Persian, which is still known from poetry, from people's names, and from the calendar: Tir is also the fourth month of the Persian year. Only the five planets you can easily see without a telescope have old names, because those were the ones people knew. Uranus and Neptune were found with telescopes in 1781 and 1846, so in Persian they simply keep their European names.

Persian	Old name	Say it like	English	One thing to remember
عطارد	تیر	o-TÂ-rod (tir)	Mercury	The closest planet to the Sun, and the smallest.
زهره	ناهید	zoh-RE (nâ-HID)	Venus	The hottest planet, even hotter than Mercury, because its thick air traps the heat.
زمین		za-MIN	Earth	Our planet, and the only one we know with living things and with liquid water on its surface.
مریخ	بهرام	mer-RIKH (bah-RÂM)	Mars	The red planet. It is red because the iron in its rocks and dust has gone rusty.
مشتری	برجیس	mosh-ta-RI (ber-JIS)	Jupiter	The biggest planet. It has a giant storm, the Great Red Spot, that is bigger than Earth.
زحل	کیوان	zo-HAL (key-VÂN)	Saturn	The planet with the bright rings, made of billions of pieces of ice and rock.
اورانوس		u-RÂ-nus	Uranus	It spins lying on its side, like a ball rolling along.
نپتون		nep-TUN	Neptune	The farthest planet from the Sun, with the strongest winds of all.

Nâhid, bahrâm and keyvân are also common Iranian first names, so a child may already know a Nâhid or a Keyvân. A short line to say together: merrikh qermeze, chon sang-hâsh zang zade. Mars is red, because its rocks have gone rusty.

Space words

Persian	Say it like	Meaning	A short line
فضا	fa-ZÂ	space	فضانوردا تو فضا راه می‌رن. fazânavard-â tu fazâ râh miran. Astronauts walk in space.
سیاره	say-yâ-RE	planet	زمین یه سیاره‌ست. zamin ye sayyâre-st. Earth is a planet.
منظومه‌ی شمسی	man-zu-me-ye sham-SI	solar system	هشت تا سیاره دورِ خورشید می‌چرخن. hasht tâ sayyâre dowr-e khorshid micharkhan. Eight planets go around the Sun.
کهکشان	kah-ke-SHÂN	galaxy	یه کهکشان پر از ستاره‌ست. ye kahkeshân por az setâre-st. A galaxy is full of stars.
راه شیری	râh-e shi-RI	the Milky Way	ما تو کهکشانِ راه شیری زندگی می‌کنیم. mâ tu kahkeshân-e râh-e shiri zendegi mikonim. We live in the Milky Way galaxy.
فضانورد	fa-zâ-na-VARD	astronaut	من می‌خوام فضانورد بشم. man mikhâm fazânavard sham. I want to be an astronaut.
موشک	mu-SHAK	rocket	موشک رفت بالا، بالا، بالا. mushak raft bâlâ, bâlâ, bâlâ. The rocket went up, up, up.
تلسکوپ	te-les-KOP	telescope	با تلسکوپ حلقه‌های زحل رو می‌بینیم. bâ teleskop halqe-hâ-ye zohal ro mibinim. With a telescope we can see Saturn's rings.

The sun, the moon and the stars, khorshid, mâh and setâre, are on the sky and weather words page. In space terms there is one fun surprise: the Sun is a star too, just the one closest to us. Kahkeshân is an old word, usually explained as kâh-keshân, "straw-dragging", as if someone had dragged straw across the night sky and left a pale trail. Mushak, rocket, literally means "little mouse", and before rockets it was also the name of a small firework that shot up into the air.

Two Persian astronomers

Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi was born in Ray, near today's Tehran, in 903. Around 964 he finished a book of the fixed stars, with drawings of the 48 constellations known then and a table of the stars in each. In it he described a small, faint cloud in the constellation Andromeda. We now know that little cloud is a whole other galaxy, the Andromeda galaxy, far outside our own râh-e shiri.
Nasir al-Din Tusi began building an observatory, a rasadkhâne, at Maragheh in north-western Iran in 1259. Astronomers worked there for years measuring the sky, and they made new tables of where the planets would be. Traces of the observatory can still be seen on the hill today.

Al-Sufi's book is more than a thousand years old, and old hand-made copies of it are still kept in libraries today.

A solar system made of fruit

You need a kitchen table and a fruit bowl. The sizes are only roughly right, but the order and the big-and-small feeling are true.

The giants: a watermelon, hendevaneh, is Jupiter. A slightly smaller melon is Saturn; a paper ring around it makes the rings. Two oranges, porteghâl, are Uranus and Neptune.
The small ones: two cherries, gilâs, are Venus and Earth, because they are almost the same size. One grape, angur, is Mars. A chickpea, nokhod, is Mercury.
Line them up in order from a lamp that plays the Sun, and say each name as you put it down: otârod, zohre, zamin, merrikh, and so on.
Ask where things are with position words: zamin kojâst? "Where is Earth?" beyn-e zohre va merrikh. "Between Venus and Mars." Ki kenâr-e moshtariye? "Who is next to Jupiter?" For more of these words, see position words in Persian.
Then eat the planets, one at a time, from the outside in. For children under five, cut the grape and cherries into small pieces and take out the stones first, and do not eat the dry chickpea. The child says which one is going: neptun raft. "Neptune is gone."

The same game works on a video call: the grandparent lines up their own fruit at the other end and the two tables check each other. Many families also keep a grandparent's voice close between calls with recorded stories, which is what Azizan is for. For the fruit names, see fruits in Persian for kids; for Tir and the other months, see Persian months and seasons.

Related guides

Questions

What are the planets called in Persian?

From the Sun outwards: otârod (Mercury), zohre (Venus), zamin (Earth), merrikh (Mars), moshtari (Jupiter), zohal (Saturn), urânus (Uranus) and neptun (Neptune). The first five also have old names that are still known from poetry: tir, nâhid, bahrâm, berjis and keyvân.

How do you say Mars in Persian?

Mars is merrikh (مریخ). Its old Persian name is bahrâm (بهرام), which is also a boy's name.

What is the Persian word for planet?

A planet is sayyâre (سیاره). The solar system is manzume-ye shamsi (منظومه‌ی شمسی).

How do you say astronaut in Persian?

Astronaut is fazânavard (فضانورد), from fazâ, space. A rocket is mushak (موشک).

Why do Uranus and Neptune not have old Persian names?

They are too faint to notice without a telescope, so nobody knew them as planets in the old days. They were found in 1781 and 1846, and Persian uses their European names, urânus and neptun.

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Updated: 2026-11-03 · By Aida Fard

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