The story
- Middle Persian · derived from𐭠𐭧𐭲𐭫
- Classical Persian · borrowed fromاَخْتَر“star”
- Urdu · borrowed fromاَخْتَر
- Hindi · borrowed fromअख़्तर
- English todayAkhtar
Borrowed from Hindustani (through Hindi अख़्तर (axtar) / Urdu اَخْتَر (axtar)) and/or directly from Classical Persian اَخْتَر (axtar, “star”), in turn from Middle Persian 𐭠𐭧𐭲𐭫 (ʾhtl /axtar/), an ancient backformation from 𐭠𐭯𐭠𐭧𐭲𐭫 (ʾpʾhtl /abāxtar/, “planet”), due to a mistaken folk etymology that the first element ab- was a negative suffix, since Zoroastrianism considers the planets to be nefarious "un-stars" due to their astronomically odd behavior. Doublet of Tara and sitara.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.