JULY 10, 2025

Known as the Full Buck Moon. At this time, a buck’s antlers are in full growth mode. This Full Moon was also known as the Thunder Moon because thunderstorms are so frequent during this month.

How did the Full Moons get their names? The Full Moons have descriptive names that come from Native American tribes who used the Full Moons as a sort of calendar to keep track of the seasons. The Almanac tends to use the names of the Algonquins who were prominent along the Atlantic Coast and into the interior along the St. Lawrence River and around the Great Lakes.

Here are a few other Native American names for the July full Moon (translated literally into English):

“Ripe Corn Moon” –Cherokee
“Middle of Summer Moon” –Ponca
“Moon When Limbs of Trees Are Broken by Fruit” –Zuni

One of the more common names for this month’s Full Moon is the Thunder Moon, a tribute from the Algonquin to a time of year when spectacular electrical storms rake the northern forests. The Chinese deserve credit for an equally ominous name. The moon coincides with the Hungry Ghost Festival, a time when the living honor the dead by leaving food and drink to the ancestors. Their name? The Moon of the Hungry Ghosts. In medieval England, the moon had a more cheerful connotation. Crops were nearing harvest and if the fields were tall and healthy, the farmers went out to celebrate with their favorite drink, a fermented mixture of honey, malt, yeast and water (an acquired taste). Today farmers might call it The Beer Moon, but back then the growers knew it as the Mead Moon.