Wikipedia
Akhtar (اختر) means "star" in Persian. It is a unisex name. It is also a common surname.
A variant spelling is Akhter.
The Persian periodical Akhtar (meaning Star in English) was founded in 1876, following the suggestion of the Persian ambassador in Istanbul at that time, and was published until its discontinuation in 1896. Editor and director was Agha Mohammed Taher Tabrizi, the editor in chief Mirza Mehdi Tabrizi (1839-1907) was the founder of the Khorshid Publishing House in Istanbul and later the editor of Hekmat (1892-1912) in Cairo. Mirza Mohammad Ali Khan Kashani, who founded the periodical Sorayya (1898-1904) later published in Cairo, also briefly worked for the journal.
At the beginning, Akhtar - the first non-official press medium - was published almost daily, later twice - and eventually once a week. The distribution of this journal extended from many cities of Iran and the Ottoman Empire to the Caucasus and South East Asia. It served as a mouthpiece for Iranians in diaspora and was used by the Persian embassy and the consulate in Istanbul as a newsletter. Alongside political daily reports it contained domestic and international news, articles on scientific and literary topics as well as reports from correspondents and letters from Iran. Even though Akhtar as a journal published in exile could report more freely, the Ottoman censors suspended it several times. After the assassination of ad-Din Shah in 1896, the Ottoman government permanently banned the journal.