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The history of the names of the days of the week is a tangled one. The Greeks named the days of the week after their gods, but when the Romans were supreme, they substituted the names of their favorite gods for the original Greek names. However, with English being a Germanic language, it’s perhaps no surprise that our current week has several days named after Germanic gods.
Sunday was the day of the sun, whether you were Latin, Greek or Germanic, while Monday was the day of the moon. Tuesday is named after the God of War (who was Mars in Latin and Ares in Greek). However, the English form comes from Tiu/Tiwa, the Germanic/English name of the god of war and the sky.
Wednesday is named after Wodin, the main Teutonic god, who is similar to the Norse god, Odin. In Latinate languages such as French and Spanish, this day is named after the messenger of the gods, Mercury. Thursday is named after Thor, the Norse god of thunder. In Latinate languages, this day is named after the chief Roman god, Jupiter, who created thunder and lightning.
Friday is named after the Teutonic goddess of love, fertility and beauty, Freya. In Latinate languages, this day is named after the Roman goddess Venus, who had similar responsibilities. Finally, Saturday is named after the planet Saturn.
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The interesting thing is that the pattern is pretty much the same across different languages. For instance, Friday in Italian is Venerdi, which comes after Venere (Venus), the same goddess.
Yes, I found that interesting too, Daniel. It just shows how much the Romans influenced many modern languages.
Surprisingly or perhaps not, this matches the Hindu weekdays as well. A few that come to mind and all are based on Sanskrit
Monday = Moon = Som = Somwar
Tuesday = Mars = Mangal = Mangalwaar
Thursday = Jupiter = Guru = Guruwaar
Saturday = Saturn = Shani = Shaniwaar
Sunday = Sun = Ravi = Raviwaar
Wednesday and Friday are the ones where a relation is not as direct
Thanks, Ravi. That’s really interesting. Makes you wonder where the Romans took their names from.
Interesting post.
I knew that the weekdays were named in honor of pagan gods, but where the names originated was something I didn’t know.
So here’s my $0.02: when God created the earth, the first six days of the week didn’t have names at all; they were only referred to by the ordinal number in which they occurred in the week. Only the seventh day, what we call Saturday, had a name. It was called the Sabbath. God wanted this day to be special for mankind, which is why He named it and sanctified it. (If you don’t believe me, read the Bible and notice that they always referred to the days of the week as the first day, the second day, and so forth. But when the seventh day is mentioned, it’s pretty much always referred to by its name, the Sabbath.)