In general, most of our modern calendars stem from their more ancient counterparts which all seem to be based on the phases of the Moon. None of these calendars, however, begins its months with the full moon and some, like the Chinese, Jewish, Thai and some Hindu calendars, the full moon always occurs in the middle of a month.

The tradition of naming the full moons of each month goes back for hundreds if not thousands of years and tends to be based upon the seasons and quarters of the year. The names tradionally describe the weather patterns or conditions of the month or resulting phenomena. Although the general belief is that this started with early Native American (Algonquian) tribes living in what is now known as the northern and eastern United States, it would be safe to say that this tradition is not confined to these tribes but is more widedpread across the northern hemisphere (see below). It is a very ancient custom and one which has travelled with us down the long road that is time.  The ancients  would have kept track of the seasons by giving these distinctive names to each full moon as it occurred. This resulted in the month being called by that name (eg: January would be known as 'month of (?) theWolf Moon'). Although there are varitaions upon a theme here there would be certain names recurring across the board of the Native American tribes. This in itself migrated to the European settlers who adopted this custom, but in some cases would change the name and give them one of their own.

It's worth notinmg here that the 'Lunar Month' is about 29 1/2 days longs and as such would give rise to there being 13 full moons in a year. If you go by the Gregorian calendar which seems to have infiltrated this particluar Lunar calendar method, then there would be inevitably be 2 full moons in one month of the year. This 'Extra Full Moon has a significance ll of its own (click here for details)'. the dates of this and indeed the other full moons changes from year to year due to the lunar month being 29 1/2 days long
Below is a breakdown and a list of the more widley used names of the Full Moons and - where possible - an interpretation of the origins of the name or one of the alternate names. Where that has failed, an opinion has risen, a supposition has surfaced, or sheer 'shot in the dark' guesswork has prevailed!.

One more thing... Here are some pictures of the moon I took over the year (2007 - and yes, I did really get to see it in spite of the years terrible, wet and soggy summer, AND these include one lunar eclipse...