stylistic:tone
Modern significance

Sirius features on the coat of arms of Macquarie University, and is the name of its alumnae journal. Seven ships of the Royal Navy have been called HMS Sirius since the 18th century, with the first being the flagship of the First Fleet to Australia in 1788. The Royal Australian Navy subsequently named a vessel HMAS Sirius in honor of the flagship. American vessels include the USNS Sirius (T-AFS-8) as well as a monoplane model—the Lockheed Sirius, the first of which was flown by Charles Lindbergh. The name was also adopted by Mitsubishi Motors as the Mitsubishi Sirius engine in 1980. The name of the North American satellite radio company CD Radio was changed to Sirius Satellite Radio in November 1999, being named after "the brightest star in the night sky". Sirius is one of the 27 stars on the flag of Brazil, where it represents the state of Mato Grosso.

Composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, who wrote a piece called Sirius, is claimed to have said on several occasions that he came from a planet in the Sirius system. To Stockhausen, Sirius stood for "the place where music is the highest of vibrations" and where music had been developed in the most perfect way.

Sirius has been the subject of poetry. Dante and John Milton reference the star, and it is the "powerful western fallen star" of Walt Whitman 's " When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd ", while Tennyson 's poem The Princess describes the star's scintillation:

...the fiery Sirius alters hue And bickers into red and emerald.