# Names for the days of the week **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 28, 2001, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842 "2001-03-28T16:09:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![mongrel\_8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@mongrel\_8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mongrel_8)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2001, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842/61 "2001-04-11T00:21:58Z")
**Jomo Mojo** , you truly are a master linguist, or at least a good researcher. I have been lookinh for an explanation of the Irish items, but only found out that December was Christmas, and what September and October were. Thank you for helping me out there. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2001, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842/62 "2001-04-12T07:32:25Z")
Thank you, **Mongrel\_8** and **Timchik**. I’m an amateur linguist, self-taught. What I posted here is from what I could find in my personal library. Just went and bought an Irish dictionary the other day. 🙂 After posting the Irish stuff, I realized that _Céadaoin_ for Wednesday means ‘First _Aoine_’ and _Déardaoin_ for Thursday means ‘Second _Aoine_’. While Friday is just plain _Aoine_. (Like the Persian Saturday, _shanbeh_, which means just ‘day’?) \*Aoine seems to be derived from the word _aon_ meaning ‘one’. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2001, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842/63 "2001-04-13T11:11:00Z")
\***Days of the week (_garakun edür_).** Sunday: _sayin edür_ (Good Day) or _gesek edür_ or _nyam garag_ Monday: _nige gragh_ (First Planet) or _somiya_ or _negdekh ödör_ (First Day) Tuesday: _qoyar gragh_ (Second Planet) or _angradak_ or _myagmar garag_ (Mars) Wednesday: _ghurban gragh_ (Third Planet) _bot_ (Mercury) or _lkhagva_ or _guravdakhi ödör_ (Third Day) Thursday: _dörben gragh_ (Fourth Planet) or _baraksavati_ or _pürev garag_ (Jupiter) Friday: _tabun gragh_ (Fifth Planet) or _söger_ or _baasan_ or _tavdakhi ödör_ (Fifth Day) Saturday: _jirghughan gragh_ (Sixth Planet) or _bimba edür_ or _byamba_. **Months (_sara_).** January: _nige sara_ (First month) February: _qoyar sara_ (Second month) March: _ghurban sara_ (Third month) April: _dörben sara_ (Fourth month) May: _tabun sara_ (Fifth month) June: _jirghughan sara_ (Sixth month) July: _dologhan sara_ (Seventh month) August: _naiman sara_ (Eighth month) September: _yisün sara_ (Ninth month) October: _arban sara_ (Tenth month) November: _arban nige sara_ (Eleventh month) December: _arban qoyar sara_ (Twelfth month). **Seasons (_oolaril_).** Spring: _khabor_ Summer: _jun_ Autumn: _namor_ Winter: _ebül_. \*_Directions (juk)._ North: _khoido_ South: _emüne_ East: _jegün_ West: _baraghon_. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2002, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842/64 "2002-11-17T11:39:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jomo Mojo \* > \*\*Months. In Finnish, the month names are refreshingly original and lovely, evocative of nature. > > January: _tammikuu_ (Oak Moon) > February: _helmikuu_ (Pearl Moon) > March: _maaliskuu_ > April: _huhtikuu_ > May: _toukokuu_ (Sowing Moon) > June: _kesäkuu_ (Summer Moon) > July: _heinäkuu_ (Hay Moon) > August: _elokuu_ (Grain Moon) > September: _syyskuu_ (Late Summer Moon) > October: _lokakuu_ (Mud Moon) > November: _marraskuu_ > December: _joulukuu_ (Yule Moon). > > Unfortunately, I couldn’t find translations for some of them. Any Finns here can help us out? \*\* It turns out that the _maalis_ in _Maaliskuu_ for March came from the word _mahla_ meaning ‘sap’ (when the sap rises in the birch trees, tapped by the Finns), but was altered, influenced by the word _maa_ ‘earth’, for some reason. The _huhti_ in _Huhtikuu_ for April refers to clearing the forest in a slash-and-burn culture. The Lithuanian month name _birZélis_ (June) means the same thing. The _syys_ in _Syyskuu_ for September is from _sysky_, ‘autumn’. The _marras_ in _Marraskuu_ for November means ‘death’ and is probably an old loanword from Indo-European. (cf Latin _mors/mortis_, Sanskrit _mrtya_, ‘death’.) In Finnish t often changes to s. The _joulu_ (Yule) in _joulukuu_ for December is a loanword from Swedish. Yule was originally a 12-day Germanic pagan winter festival. ---
**Author:** ![c\_carol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@c\_carol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/c_carol)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2002, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842/65 "2002-11-17T20:45:12Z")
Because somebody had to do it: [names of months and days in Quenya, Sindarin, and Westron](http://fin.go.wifl.at.org/tables/html/dates.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2002, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842/66 "2002-11-17T22:05:28Z")
Did the mention of “Yule” trigger your memory of the Middle-Earth calendars? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![c\_carol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e79b87/32.png) [@c\_carol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/c_carol)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842/67 "2002-11-18T01:05:45Z")
Jomo, actually “Monday, Trewsday, Hevensday…” was the first thing I thought of when I saw this thread. (I am such a Tolkien geek!) ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842/68 "2002-11-18T05:12:03Z")
**c\_carol** , that was an amazing bit of wordplay Tolkien pulled off in Appendix D of _The Lord of the Rings_. Having conceived the mythology of Arda out of whole cloth, he derived Elvish names for the days of the week based on this mythology, the Valar, the Two Trees, and all … then he figured how this ancient lore would filter down to the simple Hobbits in a much reduced form … then he produced for the Hobbits an oddly mutated form of these names in English that just happened to resemble the names we use today (which come from Germanic mythology). “The Hobbits took over this arrangement, but the meanings of their translated names were soon forgotten, or no longer attended to, and the forms were much reduced, especially in everyday pronunciation.” He traced an older form that looked like Middle English, and how it became the later form used at the time of the War of the Ring. I still shake my head in wonder when I look how he did this. Elvish names of the days of the week: _Anarya_ (dedicated to the Sun) _Isilya_ (Moon) _Aldúya_ (The Two Trees [the original sources of light before the Sun and Moon were made]) _Menelya_ (The Heavens) _Eärenya_ (The Sea) _Valanya_ (The Valar [the high demigods of Arda mythology]) _Elenya_ (Stars) So for the Hobbits these became: Sunday Monday Trewsday Hevensday → Hensday Mersday Highday Sterday 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Milton\_De\_La\_Warre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Milton\_De\_La\_Warre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milton_De_La_Warre)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842/69 "2002-11-18T13:05:24Z")
"Romans replaced the names with their own gods when Constantine borrowed the idea of a week in AD 321. " So what did they do before that? Think in terms of quarter-months? Half-ides? This is kind of like the question of what the ancient Greeks did. I suspect that there was no standard, as IIRC the different city-states had different measures for time, distance, weight, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Kri\_kla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/edb3f5/32.png) [@Kri\_kla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kri_kla)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842/70 "2002-11-18T14:02:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jomo Mojo \* > \*\ ***Directions.** > North: _pohjoinen_ (from _pohja_ ‘bottom’?) > South: _etelä_ (related to _ete-_ ‘forward, ahead’?) > East: _itä_ (from _itä-_ ‘germinate, sprout’?) > West: _länsi_. \*\* Also: Northeast: _koillinen_ Northwest: _luode_ Southeast: _kaakko_ Southwest: _lounas_ ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842/71 "2002-11-18T14:06:44Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Jomo Mojo_ > **I had looked up the Japanese names but didn’t know how to explain them. This is perhaps the most interesting set of meanings yet. The Sun and Moon matching the other systems (probably via Buddhism from India, originally Babylonian), plus the five elements of Chinese cosmology: Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, Earth. The Japanese use “Gold” to stand for Metal. Nice. So I guess the traditional Chinese names must have followed this pattern, and the modern numerical names are a Red Chinese reform? I gotta ask my acupuncturist about this! I noticed that sui for ‘Water’ is a Chinese on kanji word; aren’t these all on Chinese words in Japanese?** The days of the week in Japanese are all _on-yomi_. The _kun-yomi_ equivalents are as follows: Sunday - nichi - hi Monday - getsu - tsuki Tuesday - ka - hi Wednesday - sui - mizu Thursday - moku - ki Friday - kin - kane Saturday - do - tsuchi The fact that the days of the week are named after the five Chinese elements is accidental - they are named after the planets and it is the planets that are named after the elements! The seven celestial bodies are as follows: Sun: hi (modern: taiyô) Moon: tsuki (full moon: mangetsu - for use of the _on-yomi_) Mars: kasei Mercury: suisei Jupiter: mokusei Venus: kinsei Saturn: dosei _Sei_ is the _on-yomi_ for _hoshi_, star. The proper way to form the words for week days is to add the suffix _yôbi_, sometimes shortened to simply _yô_. The rather complicated character _yô_ (18 strokes) means day of the week and _bi_, is the same character, _hi_, used for Sun, but here means day, and is unusually used in the _kun-yomi_ form in a compound. I checked out **The Teahouse of August** and in Japanese, it was translated as **[Hachigatsu Jûgo-ya no Chaya](http://www.nona.dti.ne.jp/~hideman/new_meisaku/hachigatsu.htm)** Hachigatsu jûgo-ya, the fifteenth night of August, which according to the lunar callendar is a night of full moon. In Chinese, this was apparently translated simply as **qiu yue cha shi** autumn moon teahouse. ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842/72 "2002-11-18T14:21:22Z")
Oh, and Ryûkyû, hmmm Hachigatsu: pacigwaci Jûgo-ya: zuugu’jaa Chaya: uh, sorry can’t find it. If you read Japanese, though, there’s a really nice site about Ryûkyû [here](http://ryukyu-lang.lib.u-ryukyu.ac.jp/), though, there’s an online dictionary with recordings of the pronunciation. ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842/73 "2002-11-18T14:38:20Z")
Addendum, for those who care, it’s important to note that the days of the week in Japanese are not recent translations of European terms. They were imported from Tang dynasty China, probably around the seventh century - along with the concept of a seven-day week. ---
**Author:** ![Jerevan\_Somerville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@Jerevan\_Somerville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jerevan_Somerville)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842/74 "2002-11-18T18:12:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Stephen \* > \*\*Why have most western languages adopted the Astronomical names for Saturday, Sunday and Monday (Saturn, Sun and Moon respectively) and yet chose different origins for the remaining days? > > Saturn Sun Moon Mars Mercury Jupiter Venus -Astro. > Saturni Solis Lunae Martis Mercurii Jovis Veneris -Latin > Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday -English > Saterne’s Sun’s Moon’s Tiw’s Woden’s Thor’ Frigg’s -Saxon > Samedi Dimanche Lundi Mardi Mercredi Jeudi Vendredi -French > Sabado Domingo Segunda Terca Quarta Quinta Sexta -Portugese > Sabado Domingo Lunes Martes Miercoles Jueves Viernes -Spanish\*\* If I understand what you’re asking, then I think your question was answered in part a couple of posts before yours by **Protesilaus** , who showed that the common thread across cultures and languages are the similarities between particular deities, not astronomical associations. Certainly the Romans made the obvious association of their seven-day week with the Sun, Moon and five planets visible to the naked eye, so that all three sets – planets, gods and weekdays – had corresponding names. But the Saxons associated their gods with the Roman gods (not Saxon and Latin planet-names), and named their weekdays accordingly. ---
**Author:** ![Jerevan\_Somerville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c37758/32.png) [@Jerevan\_Somerville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jerevan_Somerville)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2002, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842/75 "2002-11-18T18:20:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Floater \* > BTW I once read something somewhere on Straight Dope where someone asked if the Earth was called Earth in other languages too. I don’t remember who answered it but he/she/it demonstrated that it wasn’t so by entering the word earth into some automated translator. The translation into Swedish came out as **mull** , which is nothing but the common or garden variety [of soil]…{snip}…The planet is called **Jorden**. \*\* I remember that thread. One thing which came out of it was the distinction which can be made between earth (dirt, soil), Earth (the physical object, planet) and “the world” (sphere of human life & activity) in different languages. As your Swedish example demonstrates. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842/76 "2002-11-19T04:50:06Z")
**Jovan** —amazing, utterly amazing. You not only know Japanese and Chinese, you can do _Ryukyuan_!!! Do you know what the traditional Chinese names were before they were replaced by the boring numerical names? ---
**Author:** ![Agback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/977dab/32.png) [@Agback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agback)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842/77 "2002-11-19T05:24:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Kyomara \* > **Okay…,but how did they choose the ORDER of the day names? I could see why they might put the sun and the moon at the beginning of the week, but why does the king of the gods come on Thursday?** Part of the answer is that the days are not named directly after the gods, but after the then-known ‘planets’: the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn. They were translated into the Saxon using the names of the gods that the Roman syncretists felt corresponded to the gods after whom the planets were named in Latin: the Sun, the Moon, Tiw, Woden, Thunorr, Frigg; except in the case of Saturn, for whom no satisfactory equivalent could be found. You might be surprised that Woden, king of the Saxon gods, corresponded to Mercury (Hermes) rather than to Jupiter. There are three reasons. One is that Mercury guided the souls of the dead, while Woden collected the souls of the dead. Another is that Woden was a magician, while Hermes (Greek equivalent of Mercury under another set of forced correspondences) was patron of magicians, because of his equivalence (under yet another set of forced correspondences) to the Egyptian god whom the Greeks called Thoth Trimegistos. The third is that Jupiter was already taken by Thunorr, because they were both gods of thunder and storms. I don’t know why the days were named for the planets in that peculiar order. I remember reading an explanation once, which was in terms of the intricacies of Babylonian astronomy or astrology. But I don’t remember what the explanation was. The invaluable Carl Darling Buck (_A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages_) tells me that “…the origin of the system is uncertain”. Regards, Agback ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842/78 "2002-11-19T07:59:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jomo Mojo \* > \*\ ***Jovan** —amazing, utterly amazing. You not only know Japanese and Chinese, you can do _Ryukyuan_!!! > > Do you know what the traditional Chinese names were before they were replaced by the boring numerical names? \*\* To be honest, I _read_ some Chinese, and I just did a quick search on a Ryukyuan dictionary - ain’t the internet grand, though? Unfortunately, my dictionaries are at home, and I doubt anyway that any of them gives Tang-era pronunciations. That being said, it appears the names of the week were written exactly the same way they are now in Japanese. The internet yields more trivia: the first systematic use of the seven-day week in Japan is found in the diary of Michinaga Fujiwara (998 - 1021). When the Tokugawa clan took power, Thursday and Sunday were interverted, according to mistaken Kanto-area usage. This was corrected some 80 years later, in 1685. The first mention of the seven-day week in Chinese litterature dates from the late 8th century and is found in the _Kong que ming wang jing_ a translation by one Yijing of a Buddhist sutra, the Mahâmâyûrî-vidyârâjñî, or Peacock Sutra. That being said, it is believed that through Persian Manicheist influences, the week had already been introduced in China by that date. The first mention in Japan dates from 806, in the Shukuyôkyô, another Buddhist sutra brought back from China by the great monk Kôbô Daishi (Kûkai). Note - the Shukuyôkyô nowadays seems to be widely used by fortune-tellers for divination purposes… ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842/79 "2002-11-19T10:38:51Z")
Kôbô Daishi—the author of the _iroha_ poem. A man of many talents. Here’s a puzzle, if anyone knows the answer: what is the etymology of the French name for Saturday, _samedi_? How do you get that from _Saturni dies_? There’s nothing in it that could produce an _m_. The Italian name for Saturday is _sabato_ and the Spanish is _sabado_. My guess is that the _b_ in _Sabbath_ blended with the _n_ in _Saturn_ to result in the _m_ of _samedi_. Maybe the French had been using both names and they just sort of merged. ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2002, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842/80 "2002-11-19T11:09:58Z")
Oh, oh, I know! The reason it’s _samedi_ is because it _doesn’t_ come from _Saturni dies_ like many sources claim, but rather the vulgar latin _Sambati dies_, Sabbath day. The romanian _sambata_ has the same etymology. [OT] How much can you pack in a lifetime? Kôbô Daishi, -Founded the Shingon sect, one of the major Buddhist movements in Japan. -Invented katakana. -Introduced the 7-day week in Japan. -Supposedly introduced ancient Greek-style homosexuality to Japan. … among other things. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/names-for-the-days-of-the-week/59842.md?page=5)