Calendar Month Names History
The earliest latin calendar was a 10 month one beginning with march.
Calendar month names history. September means the 7th month october the 8th november the 9th and december the 10th month. The names of our months are therefore derived from the roman gods leaders festivals and numbers. Called aprilis from aperire to open possibly because it is the month in which the buds begin to open.
Birthdays wedding anniversaries and public holidays are regulated by pope gregory xiii s gregorian calendar which is itself a modification of julius caesar s calendar introduced in 45 bc. To keep the calendar in line with the solar year of 365 242189 days an extra intercalary month was added. Our lives run on roman time.
The ancient athenian calendar was a lunisolar calendar with 354 day years consisting of twelve months of alternating length of 29 or 30 days. It is named after the roman god of war mars. This is the first month of the roman year.
Their original names in latin mean the fifth sixth seventh eighth ninth and tenth month. July was originally called quintilis meaning fifth. The name probably comes from maiesta the roman.
However the month names we use today are derived from the roman calendar which initially had only 10 months with the calendar year starting in march martius. In addition a 27 or 28 day intercalary month the mensis intercalaris was sometimes inserted between february and march this intercalary month was formed by inserting 22 or 23 days after the first 23 days of february. Today many cultures are still using their traditional 13 month calendar system.
In the united states november is associated with the much anticipated thanksgiving holiday which involves lots of eating a four day weekend and black friday the start of the christmas holiday season and the. August was originally called sextilis meaning sixth. The celtic knowledge of the druids is based on the tree calendar also a 13 month 28 day calendar.