In astrology, certain stars are considered significant. Historically, all of the various heavenly bodies considered by astrologers were considered "stars", whether they were stars, planets, other stellar phenomena like novas and supernovas, or other solar system phenomena like comets and meteors.

In traditional astrological nomenclature, the stars were divided into fixed stars, Latin stellæ fixæ, which in astrology means the stars and other galactic or intergalactic bodies as recognized by astronomy; and "wandering stars" (Greek: πλανήτης αστήρ, planētēs astēr), which we know as the planets of the Solar System. Astrology also treats the Sun, a star, and Earth's Moon as if they were planets in the horoscope. These stars were called "fixed" because it was thought that they were attached to the firmament, the most distant from Earth of the heavenly spheres.

Certain of the astrological degrees were identified and known due to their association with a corresponding star. The astrological degrees that correspond to individual stars must be corrected for the precession of the equinoxes, and as such the astrologer must know when any given position of a fixed star was noted, to make the necessary corrections.

In the broadest sense the many different types of astrological practice divide into two types: Sidereal astrology and tropical astrology. They differ in the positions of their respective divisions of the zodiac, but otherwise use the same positions of the planets, obtained either by observation or more often calculated and published in an astronomical ephemeris, such as the Astronomical Almanac.

Traditional Western astrology is based on tropical astrology, which presumes an equal division of the sky along the ecliptic into twelve seasonal zones, with the divisions between sections starting at the current location of the spring equinox rather than aligned to any particular constellations' stars. Each zone is called a sign, and given the name of the constellation which formerly occupied the corresponding ecliptic position c. 150 CE, starting with the sign Aries. The equinox was located at the western edge of the constellation Aries when western astrology was codified in the Tetra Biblos, but as a result of the precession of the equinoxes the positions of tropical astrology's zodiacal signs no longer overlap the constellations they were named for, because the starting point of the system of signs at the equinox has shifted west across nearly the entire constellation Pisces over the past two millennia, at a rate of about one constellation per 2 600 years. For example, the current start of the sign Aries begins in the western quarter of Pisces, far from its border with Aries to the east, and near Pisces' border with Aquarius to the west.

Sidereal astrology is more common in Asia, and orients to the current positions of selected station stars in zodiacal constellations (for example Spica, Antares, Aldebaran, and Regulus, among others). It is at once the oldest and a recently revived astrological tradition. Sidereal astrology uses the actual current positions of constellation's centers as its starting point, but separates them using traditional divisions of the zodiac constellations (rather than modern astronomical boundaries).

Traditionally, the most important fixed points in the heavens were described by the constellations of the zodiac. Ptolemy's account likens the influence of some of the stars in the zodiac constellations to the planets; he writes, for example, that "The stars in the feet of Gemini (Alhena and Tejat Posterior) have an influence similar to that of Mercury, and moderately to that of Venus."

Vivian E. Robson notes that many of the traditional constellations outside of the zodiac constellations occupy large degrees of arc and typically compass several of the tropical zodiac signs. Ptolemy referred to stars by reference to the anatomy or parts of the constellations in which they appeared; thus Arcturus he named the "right knee of Boötes". Most of the Western names of stars, such as Algol or Betelgeuse, are Arabic in origin. In 1603 the Augsburg lawyer and celestial cartographer Johann Bayer introduced the current Greek letter-based naming system for the brighter stars, in which easily seen stars are identified by their constellation names prefixed with a Greek letter roughly assigned in descending order of brightness. For example, Regulus is the brightest star in Leo, so it is catalogued as α Leonis – the first (brightest) star of the Lion; several sidereal astrological systems use Spica as their zodiac starting point, which is the brightest star in Virgo, hence α Virginis.