Who invented names of the months

The wealthy would skip work and spend the entire month praying and meditating. This explains why March was named after Mars, the god of war. Fun fact: An estimated 13 million pints of Guinness are consumed in honor of St. Where it got its name: Unclear. Some historians believe it comes from Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. If the Romans were in the midst of war, they would even plant balsam and ebony trees during this month to signify victories in battles.

Where it got its name: Maia — the goddess of fertility and growth. In ancient Rome, Maia oversaw the growth of plants. Horticulture was a significant part of life in their society.

They would use plants and flowers for food, drinks, medicine, cosmetics, aromatherapy, and even religious worship. Fun fact: According to the U. Where it got its name: Juno — the goddess of love and marriage.

Midsummer was important in ancient Rome as it was a time where powerful families would arrange marriages. June was a very popular month for these weddings, which is why it was named after the goddess of love and marriage. Where it got its name: birth month of Julius Caesar — Roman general who was famously assassinated in 44 BC. It only made sense for Julius Caesar to be represented somewhere in the Roman calendar. After all, he is credited with creating the Julian system of telling time in Rome.

Fun fact: An estimated million hot dogs are eaten every year on the Fourth of July in the United States. He was a respected leader in Rome just like Julius Caesar and was even able to restore the city to its former glory following the war. The name just kind of stuck. Fun fact: September is the most common birthday month in America. The original Roman calendar only had 10 months. Fun fact: October is the most popular month for weddings in the United States.

Even though November is the eleventh month, it was the ninth month in the original Roman calendar. As Rome made the switch to the Gregorian calendar, no one bothered to change the names. Now the numbers are all jumbled up in the modern calendar we use today! Fun fact: 46 million turkeys are eaten every year on Thanksgiving , which is observed on the fourth Thursday of November.

December was the tenth month in the Roman calendar. History and tradition were important in Rome, which could explain why they wanted to hold onto some of the names from their original calendar. Ancient Romans based each month on the time between two new moons, which is The pattern alternates between shorter and longer months, with the exception being July and August which each have 31 days. Hello, longer summer! February is short because of leap years.

That extra time adds up every four years, which is why February gets an extra day. So why does February get less days instead of June or November? This can be attributed to Roman superstition! King Numa Pompilius divided the 12 cycles of the moon across 12 months.

Since February was a month of spiritual purification, the shorter number of days kept evil spirits on Earth for less time. The 7-day week was first found in the Babylonian calendar. It represents the time it takes for the moon to transition between each of its phases, starting and ending at the crescent moon. The days of the week are a mash-up of many different languages and cultural ideas.

So why do we have a five-day workweek? The answer comes from 20th century New England where overworked men were demanding a sabbath, or a couple days of rest. The Great Depression sealed the deal since a two-day weekend meant shorter hours and less unemployment.

Historians believe both ancient Egypt and Rome had a role to play in this fact. Worship was seen as a suitable way to start a new week. Ancient Rome may have also contributed to Sunday as the first day of the week. The Romans believed that the week started with the sun Sunday and moon Monday and ended with Saturn Saturday. The 24 hour day was observed in ancient Egypt in BC. The Egyptians used shadow clocks and sundials to measure the daytime and nighttime in 12 hour increments.

In the summer, the days would be longer. In the winter, the nights were longer. There are many other holidays that we look forward to every year as well. It just depends on your individual beliefs and traditions. Talk about chaos! Calendars keep our society moving forward. Time flies by, so be sure you cherish every moment!

The way we tell time has evolved over the years, and no culture seemed to think of it in the same way. No matter what, appreciate every moment and use your calendar to stay organized! Johnson, B. Give Us Our Eleven Days. Rampton, J. The History of the Calendar.

Web Exhibits. History of Our Calendar. Forrest, K. National Geographic. Caesar Augustus. Bikos, K. Kher, A. Change From Julian to Gregorian Calendar. Ramesh, S. How the Moon Made the Calendar. National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Calendar World. The Ancient Sumerian Calendar. Ancient and Religious Calendar Systems. History Bits. Calendar, Names of Days. Our lives run on Roman time. The names of our months are therefore derived from the Roman gods, leaders, festivals, and numbers.

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, Mars, the god of war. This month was followed by Aprilis , Maius , and Iunius , names derived from deities or aspects of Roman culture.

Thereafter, however, the months were simply called the fifth month Quintilis , sixth month Sixtilis and so on, all the way through to the tenth month, December. The institution of two additional months, Ianuarius and Februarius , at the beginning of the year was attributed to Numa, the second king of Rome.

Despite the fact that there were now 12 months in the Roman year, the numerical names of the later months were left unchanged. Further reading: Explainer: the gods behind the days of the week. While January takes its name from Janus , the Roman god of beginnings and endings, February comes from the word februum purification and februa , the rites or instruments used for purification.

These formed part of preparations for the coming of Spring in the northern hemisphere. Each month was divided into sections that ended on the day of one of the first three phases of the moon: new, first quarter or full. All days were referred to in terms of one of these three moon phase names, Kalends, Nones or Ides. At that time a pontifex priest was assigned to observe the sky.

When he first sighted a thin lunar crescent he called out that there was a new moon and declared the next month had started. For centuries afterward, Romans referred to the first day of each month as Kalendae or Kalends from the Latin word calare to announce solemnly, to call out. The word calendar was derived from this custom. The day of Kalends itself began a new month. It was dedicated to Juno, a principal goddess of the Roman Pantheon. Unnamed days in the early Roman month were assigned a number by counting down following the day of each named phase, day by day, ending with the next of those three phases.

Each succeeding day was one number lower than that of the day before. Similar to the modern count-down when coordination of a group of people is required for a complicated activity such as launching a rocket. Latin for "the evening before" is " Pridie ," a word that was used to refer to the day before each of these named phases. So Pridie was always the day that would otherwise have been numbered two.

The count-down was inclusive; the day from which they started as well as that of the moon phase to which they were counting down, day one, were both included. Nones Latin nonus or ninth was originally the day when the moon reached its first quarter phase. When the pontifex initially saw the lunar crescent he noted its width and, using empirical knowledge, calculated the number of days that were expected to elapse between then and the first quarter moon.

He then specified that number after he announced the new crescent. If he called out the number six, the day following Kalends would be referred to as the sixth day before Nones. In any given year, the second day of Martius might well have been designated as the sixth of the Nones of March: " ante diem VI Non.

The difference between these two dates, eight days, was always the length of the Ides section. Use of the word "Nones" nine was intended to express the inclusive number of elapsed days between first quarter and full moons.

Actually, the time between moon phases now averages about 7. Eight-day separations of first quarter and full moons now usually come grouped in consecutive lunations.

They then give way to mostly seven-day periods. Six of the first seven lunations of , for instance, had their first quarter and full moon phases eight days apart inclusive nine-day spans.

Also, July 1 of had a first-quarter moon followed by a new moon on July 9, a nine-day period. Ides, dedicated to Jupiter, was originally the time of the full moon. Because a full moon comes halfway thru each lunation, its day was called Idus in Latin from an Etruscan word meaning "divide. After Ides, the next new moon was expected to appear in from 15 to 17 days.

Variations in the length of time before another new moon can be sighted is due to constantly changing positions of moon and Earth relative to the sun. Romans separated their months from the lunar cycle in the fifth century B. Month lengths then became fixed. It was designated as the 13th day in all other months. As a result, from then on the Kalends section had from 16 to 19 days, the Nones section had either four or six days and the Ides section, as before, always had eight days.

The first day of each new year was represented by the letter "A. The early Roman calendar originated as a local calendar in the city of Rome, supposedly drawn up by Romulus some seven or eight centuries before the Christian Era. The year began in March and consisted of 10 months, six of 30 days and four of 31 days, making a total of days: it ended in December, to be followed by what seems to have been an uncounted winter gap.

Numa Pompilius, according to tradition the second king of Rome ? To obtain sufficient days for his new months, he is then said to have deducted one day from the day months, thus having 56 days to divide between January and February. But since the Romans had, or had developed, a superstitious dread of even numbers, January was given an extra day; February was still left with an even number of days, but as that month was given over to the infernal gods, this was considered appropriate. The system allowed the year of 12 months to have days, an uneven number.

The so-called Roman republican calendar was supposedly introduced by the Etruscan Tarquinius Priscus B. The Roman republican calendar was a dating system that evolved in Rome prior to the Christian era.

According to legend, Romulus, the founder of Rome, instituted the calendar in about B. This dating system, however, was probably a product of evolution from the Greek lunar calendar, which in turn was derived from the Babylonian. The original Roman calendar appears to have consisted only of 10 months and of a year of days. The Roman ruler Numa Pompilius is credited with adding January at the beginning and February at the end of the calendar to create the month year. In B. By the 1st century B.

The occasional intercalation of an extra month of 27 or 28 days, called Mercedonius, kept the calendar in step with the seasons. The confusion was compounded by political maneuvers. The Pontifex Maximus and the College of Pontiffs had the authority to alter the calendar, and they sometimes did so to reduce or extend the term of a particular magistrate or other public official.

Finally, in 46 B. He wanted the year to begin in January since it contained the festival of the god of gates later the god of all beginnings , but expulsion of the Etruscan dynasty in B.