Ever looked at a calendar and wondered why September isn't the seventh month? The prefix "sept" literally means seven. Yet, here we are, tucking it away as the ninth month of the year. It's a mess. Honestly, our modern way of tracking time is a chaotic collage of Roman ego, lunar confusion, and a few dead emperors who wanted to live forever through a datebook.
We live our lives by these twelve blocks of time. We plan weddings in June and pay taxes in April. But the meaning of months isn't just about seasons or scheduling dental appointments. It is a linguistic fossil record. If you dig into where these names actually come from, you find a world of ancient superstitions, bloody sacrifices, and a calendar that used to just... stop... during the winter because nobody cared what time it was when nothing was growing.
The Chaos of the Roman Ten-Month Year
Before we got the polished Gregorian calendar we use today, the Romans were running around with a ten-month system. It started in March. It ended in December. What happened during the dead of winter? Nothing. They basically didn't count those days. It was just a nameless gap of cold and misery until the king Numa Pompilius decided that was probably a bad way to run an empire.
He added January and February to the end of the year. Eventually, they got moved to the front. This shift is exactly why the numbered months—September, October, November, and December—are all "wrong" today. They were pushed two spots back.
January: The God of Transitions
January is named after Janus. He’s the Roman god of beginnings, gates, transitions, and endings. He has two faces. One looks back at the year that just died, and the other looks forward at what’s coming. It’s a bit eerie if you think about it. Most people think "New Year, New Me" is a modern invention, but the Romans were already obsessed with this duality over 2,000 years ago.
February: The Month of Cleaning (and Blood)
February is weird. It’s short, it’s cold, and the name comes from februa, which means "purification." It wasn't about spring cleaning your kitchen, though. It was about the festival of Lupercalia. Historians like Plutarch described rituals that involved more goats and physical striking of people than most of us would be comfortable with today. It was a time to wash away the "sins" or the sludge of the previous year to get ready for the fertile spring.
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The Meaning of Months and the Power of War
March is where the year used to begin. It makes sense. The snow melts. The grass grows. You can move an army without them freezing to death in the Alps.
That’s why March is named after Mars, the god of war. It wasn't just about flowers; it was about the resumption of military campaigns. When you look at the meaning of months through this lens, you realize our calendar was built by a culture that prioritized expansion and conquest.
April, May, and June: The Feminine Influence
After the violence of March, things soften up. April's origin is debated, but most scholars lean toward the Latin aperire, which means "to open." Think of buds opening. Some also link it to Aphrodite.
May is dedicated to Maia. She was a Greek goddess of the earth and growth. She’s often associated with the concept of "increase." It’s a very lush, fertile name for a month where everything is finally in full bloom.
June belongs to Juno. She was the queen of the gods and the protector of marriage and well-being. This is likely why June weddings became such a massive cultural staple. If the goddess of marriage is literally the patron of the month, you’d be a fool not to get hitched then, right? That’s the logic that has survived for millennia.
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When Emperors Hijacked the Calendar
This is where the numbering gets truly hijacked. Originally, July and August were just called Quintilis (the fifth month) and Sextilis (the sixth month). They were boring. They were functional.
Then came Julius Caesar.
After he was assassinated, the Roman Senate renamed Quintilis to July (Julius) to honor him. Not to be outdone, his successor, Augustus Caesar, decided he needed a month too. So, Sextilis became August.
There’s a persistent myth that Augustus stole a day from February to make August as long as July because he had an ego problem. Most modern historians, looking at the Fasti (ancient calendars), actually think that’s a later invention. But it makes for a great story about how much power these guys had. They didn't just rule people; they tried to rule time itself.
The Numbered Months: A Lack of Creativity?
Once you get past August, the Romans clearly ran out of gods or emperors they wanted to celebrate. Or maybe they just got lazy.
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- September: Seven (septem).
- October: Eight (octo).
- November: Nine (novem).
- December: Ten (decem).
It is incredibly jarring to realize that for four months of the year, we are just counting incorrectly. We are using the Latin words for 7, 8, 9, and 10 to describe the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th months. We've had thousands of years to fix this. We just haven't.
Why Does This Still Matter in 2026?
You might think this is just trivia. It’s not. The meaning of months dictates how we perceive the flow of our lives. We have "September brain," where we feel like we need to start fresh because of the old academic calendars, even though the actual "start" was months ago.
Our psychological connection to these names is deep. Marketing agencies spend billions of dollars leveraging the "feel" of these months. "October" evokes a specific aesthetic of decay and harvest that "Month 10" never could.
The Global Perspective
It's also worth noting that this isn't the only way to see the world. The Hijri calendar is lunar. The Hebrew calendar adds leap months to stay in sync with the sun. The Chinese calendar links months to zodiac animals and solar terms like "Insects Awaken."
When we stick to the Roman names, we are participating in a specific Western heritage that values agricultural cycles and imperial ego.
Actionable Insights: Using This Knowledge
Knowing the history of these names can actually change how you plan your year. Instead of seeing a calendar as a rigid set of deadlines, try viewing it as a cycle of themes.
- Reclaim February for its original purpose. Don't just wait for spring. Use the "purification" roots to declutter your digital life or your mental space. It was always meant to be a month of shedding the old.
- Align your "War" with March. If you have a big project or a difficult conversation you’ve been putting off, lean into the energy of Mars. It’s the month of momentum.
- Don't get tripped up by the "September" reset. If you feel behind because the year is 75% over, remember that September was originally the 7th month. The "ending" feeling of the late year is partly a linguistic trick.
- Observe the "Janus" effect. In January, don't just look forward. Spend the first week looking back. You cannot see the door ahead clearly if you haven't processed the room you just left.
Our calendar is a chaotic, beautiful, and slightly broken system. It’s a reminder that humans have always tried to make sense of the infinite stretch of time by giving it names, even if those names are a little bit wrong.