How Months Got Their Names

August :

    Another month that was named after a king! This time is Augustus Caesar in the 8 B.C. Augustus Caesar was the child that Julius Caesar adopted as he didn’t have any children. Although his name is not as famous as Julius Caesar, he reigned a very glorious era in the history, when Rome has its greatest poets and writers. It was call the “Augustan Age”. Besides, August was also called “sextilis” ( Latin for the sixth month)

September :

     The ancient English name for the month was “Gerstmonath” which means “barley month”, due to the fact that at that time the barley crop was usually harvested. The name we use now was from the Latin word “septem” which means “seven”, as it was the seventh month of the ancient year.

October :

     The name came from the word “octo” which means “eight” in Latin. The eighth month of a year had once been called “winterfyleth” (winter full month) as winter was supposed to begin at the October full moon. There are also some information that the month was named after a god in The Norse Mythology.

November :

     As the matter of fact that in November, people usually killed a large amount of cattle to get through the cold winter, the Angles And Saxons called this month “Windmonath” (wind month) and “Blodmonath” (blood month). The Roman used the Latin word “novem” which means “nine” to name November as the ninth name of the year.

December :

      Here comes the last station of the journey! Named after “decem” (ten) in Latin, December- the month of Christmas was once called “Wintermonath” and “Heligmonath” which means Holy Month.  In this month in the Roman time, there were many festivals held to show people’s respect to all the gods who brought new life and hope to this world.

       As the festivals ended, Janus would open his gate again to begin another cycle of time, and so on…