Calendar Month Names Origin

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.

Calendar month names origin. April comes from the roman word aprilis which means to open. Numa pompilius the second king of rome circa 700 bc added the two months januarius january and februarius february. The roman year originally had ten months a calendar which was ascribed to the legendary first king romulus.

Tradition had it that romulus named the first month martius after his own father. 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. The roman calendar a complicated lunar calendar had 12 months but only 10 of the months had names.

The unified achaemenid empire required a distinctive iranian calendar and one was devised in egyptian tradition with 12 months of 30 days each dedicated to a yazata eyzad and four divisions resembling the semitic week. Today we follow the gregorian calendar but it s based on the ancient roman calendar believed to be invented by romulus the first king of rome around 753 bc. The year began with martius march.

The names of our months are therefore derived from the roman gods leaders festivals and numbers. Calendar with holidays the romans named some of the months after their position in the calendar year. The first four months have mostly religious origin.

He also moved the beginning of the year from marius to januarius and changed the number of days in several months to be odd a lucky number. The fourth month was named in honor of juno. Possibly because it is the month in which the buds begin to open.

The ordinary year in the previous roman calendar consisted of 12 months for a total of 355 days. Calendar name origins names of months january me januari us oe januarius translation of latin januarius named after janus god of beginnings. The third month of the roman calendar.