Apparently the ancient Egyptians had names for their calendar days: why are we missing out on this incredible feature??

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Background:

In English, some time units have numbers, and some have names:

  • Days of the week: Names (Monday, Tuesday, …)
  • Days of the month: Numbers (May 1, May 2, May 3, …)
  • Months: Names (January, February, …)
  • Years: Numbers (2026, 2017, …)
  • (Shorter time units, such as seconds, hours, and minutes, are exclusively numbered.)

The choice of what gets named and what gets numbered is rather arbitrary, and varies across times (Fig. 1) and cultures (Fig. 2).

Fig. 1: The original Roman calendar’s 10 months were numbered in an obvious fashion (September = 7th month, October = 8th month, etc…), but the naming scheme got crazy over a few thousand years.
Fig. 2: The days of the week could just as easily be numbered. As it turns out, many languages just call the normal workdays “day 1, day 2, day 3,” etc.

The Issue:

Surprisingly, some calendars already turn out to have names for the individual days of the month (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrian_calendar). And if we believe Wikipedia, “naming the days […] after divinities was based on a similar Egyptian custom.”

So apparently there have been at least two calendars with this property, thus indicating that day-of-month naming is a time-honored system.

Fig. 3: This calendar completely lacks any names for the days of the month. Shameful!

Proposal:

Let’s give unique names to each calendar day, to jazz up the calendar a little bit.

Consider how boring it is to say “I’m driving to Reno on the 15th” when you could instead say “I’m driving to Reno on SNAKE 🐍 DAY.”

There are many possible ways to name the days, but I’m thinking that each one should be something memorable, simple, and have an existing emoji:

  • 1. Apple Day (🍎)
  • 2. Orange Day (🍊)
  • 3. Cactus Day (🌵)
  • 4. Donut Day (🍩)
  • 5. Mouse Day (🐁)
  • 6. Fish Day (🐟)
  • 7. Banana Day (🍌)
  • 8. Pretzel Day (🥨)
  • 9. Camel Day (🐪)
  • 10. Bread Day (🍞)
  • 11. Sandwich Day (🥪)
  • 12. Heart Day (❤️)
  • 13. Croissant Day (🥐)
  • 14. Mushroom Day (🍄)
  • 15. Snake Day (🐍)
  • 16. Badger Day (🦡)
  • 17. Diamond Day (♦️)
  • 18. Bug Day (🐛)
  • 19. Magnet Day (🧲)
  • 20. Bird Day (🦜)
  • 21. Burrito Day (🌯)
  • 22. Horse Day (🐴)
  • 23. Bumblebee Day (🐝)
  • 24. Squid Day (🦑)
  • 25. Clover Day (🍀)
  • 26. Coffee Day (☕)
  • 27. Log Day (🪵)
  • 28. Hog Day (🐖)
  • 29. Dog Day (🐩)
  • 30. Cat Day (🐈)
  • 31. Fruit Bat Day (🦇)

These specific choices are not in any particular order, but one could imagine creating themed groupings of days. Some months will sadly miss out on Fruit Bat Day, and February will also lack a Cat Day.

PROS: Adds excitement to each day of the month. Maybe when a person sees that it’s “burrito day” on the calendar, they will be subconsciously reminded to meet with some friends to go out for burritos.

CONS: Many proposed names above sound similar (e.g., “Dog Day” vs. “Log Day”). An updated “version 2” of this proposal might be able to propose some more unique-sounding names. The existence of “donut day” might promote excessive consumption of sugary pastries.

Originally published 2026-11-02.