The Unnecessary blog

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Why are the months named the way they are???

Firstly, the educational lesson can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Months
Yay for wikipedia!!! I thought that maybe doing a bit of research before stating my claim of why the months are named the way they are would make me look even smarter :D

Now some people will try and tell you that the months are named after certain things...for example:
January - Janus, God of the Doorway
February - Februum which means purification via the Februa ritual (originally the last month of the year which explains September - December)
March - Mars, Roman God of War
April - Aperire which means to open (like a flower)
May - Maia is the Greek Goddess of Fertility
June - Juno, wife of Jupiter
July - Formerly Quinitlis, but renamed after Julius Caesar
August - Formerly Sextilis, but renamed after Augustus
September - Sapta Ambar meaning Seven-sky, as it was originally the seventh month
October - Octo meaning eight
November - Novem meaning nine
December - Decem meaning ten

Now I wont deny that some of the names are close to fact...but most are really to hide the real way the months were decided on, both the names and the order. See it all goes back to Rome for us. There are many derivations of the calendar, many refering to the cycle of the moon to indicate a new month. But ours is closest to Romes so here is what I think really went on. You see...all those men sitting around on Togas, needed a way to explain all the parties they had. They needed to create special days which allowed for the days of feasting that they already did.

Now it just so happened that each of these little parties, were so huge, that it would take them days to get over them. Not just that, but they were held all over the land that was governed by Rome at the time. Within each of these provinces, was one exceptionally beautiful woman, after whom the men decided they would name their months after.

So there had to be a system as to who would go first. So they all put their votes in and thus you see our current months. Each month is derived from a woman's name. Now I said that there was some truth...like the relevance of some names being after people...but see where it says that January and February were originally at the end of the year...well this was changed after both women from those countries threw an awesome joint party and it was decided that they would get an upgrade to the front of the months list.

So there you go Jen!!! I hope that explanation was crazy enough and made enough crazy sense.

3 Comments:

  • At 5:48 pm , Blogger Jono said...

    haha nice... Well Im not sure which way to think.... Male driven as in the Gods.. Or female driven???

     
  • At 4:50 pm , Blogger Jenfafa said...

    good good :) I am most impressed.. i was hoping you wouldn't settle for the roman gods definition :P

    xx

     
  • At 11:10 pm , Blogger Saair said...

    BAH!!! That's just boring...although I was tempted to throw an SG1 twist on it all since it's not so far from the truth.

     

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