02/12/2023
What is December named for?
December has marked the end of the year and the coming of winter since the ancient Romans established their first calendar. As its etymology indicates, December is formed from the Latin root decem- which means “ten” … but December is our twelfth month. The strange numbering discrepancy is also present for the months of September, October, and November, which reference “seven,” “eight,” and “nine,” even though they’re our ninth, tenth, and eleventh months.
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Why? Well, the ancient Roman calendar only had ten months in the year, beginning with the month of March. January and February were eventually added after December to the end of the year. But, by the time the Julian calendar was established in 45 BCE, January and February appeared at the beginning of the year, which bumped all of the original months (and their originally assigned names) back by two.
What are the older names for December?
Before December entered Old English, the names Ǣrra Gēola or Gēolmōnað, meaning “yule month,” were used. The early Germanic people referred to this wintry season as yuletide, a two-month period that spanned December and January. Geōl means “Christmas day” or “Christmastide” (a word for the period from Christmas Eve to related feast days in early January).
Geōl is related to the Old Norse jōl, the name of the Pagan winter feast lasting 12 days. Many of the customs of the feast of yule influenced the ways that Christmas is celebrated, such as the tradition of burning a yule log at Christmastime. Fun fact: the word jolly may have derived from the same Old Norse root that brought us yule.
