Yogananda (योगानन्दा, IAST: Yogānandā) is a Sanskrit-origin Hindu girl-name meaning “She who is the bliss born of yoga”. The compound of yoga (spiritual union) and ānanda (bliss) forms yogānanda, and the feminine form yogānandā identifies Lalitā as the supreme joy that blossoms in the heart of the devotee when union with the divine is realised.

Meaning, etymology & significance

Yogānanda points to the experiential fruit of spiritual practice: not a distant theological abstraction but the immediate, overflowing joy that arises when the individual consciousness merges with the universal. As Yogānandā, Lalitā is both the path and its destination, both the yoga and the bliss it yields. This name has a warm, celebratory quality, affirming that the spiritual journey culminates not in effort but in delight.

Though widely known through the great yogi Paramahansa Yogānanda, the name is originally a divine epithet used for goddess forms, and here it belongs to Lalitā as the embodiment of yogic joy. Yogananda is used for both girls and boys as a given name in devotional Hindu families, especially in Vaiṣṇava and Śākta traditions.

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Scriptural source

Yogananda appears in the Lalitha Sahasranama, among the sacred names of Lalitha.

Astrology — nakshatra, rashi & numerology

By the standard Vedic correspondence between a name’s first syllable and the lunar mansion, Yogananda aligns with the Mula nakshatra, under the Dhanu rashi (Moon sign). Its Chaldean name-number is 1.