Personally, I would go for naming them after the twelve largest moons in the solar system, since they were originally (and still are in many cultures) based on the lunar cycles, giving the months Ganymede, Titan, Callisto, etc.
What would you rename the months?
edit: Simply using the numbers is already a thing (see, for example, 2026-01-01. January is represented as month 1), and reordering the existing month names would be a real headache, as it would be difficult to tell whether you are reading a date using the old or new naming scheme.
- Calm
- Ice
- Rise
- Rebirth
- Life
- Sun
- Vitality
- Fire
- Set
- Harvest
- Death
- Moon
I wanted each to be a pair with 6 months apart and for the solstices and equinoxes to each have an appropriate name
13 months of 28 days each. New Years is its own day outside of a month. Monday is first of each month. New Year’s is not a day of the week. Leap year feb 29th is moved to May to be a nice weather day for most of the world. It too is a holiday, and not a day of the week.
Name this holiday, and bonus, the 13 months.
Keep the month names the same but name the 13th “Smarch”.
All 20 months named Febtober.
- Angela
- Pamela
- Sandra
- Rita
- Monica
- Erica
- Tina
- Sandra
- Mary
- Jessica
- You
- Me
Sandra 2: Bega Boogaloo
You are queueing in a line. But You 31st, need to wait so long! So frightening, like Halloween.
I tried my best. You could probably do something with Me 25th as well.
I’d pull out ‘July’ and ‘August’, move everything else up two spaces and put ‘July’ and ‘August’ at the end.
- Intention
- Ice
- Seed
- Change
- Joy
- Sun
- Moon
- Fire
- Harvest
- Rain
- Despair
- Family
I eally like these names. But Despair needs an alternative name. Think of the poor people whose birthday is “Despair 1st”.
Wind could also work.
Tim.
All of them are Tim.
No love for the French Republican Calendar months?
- Pluvose
- Ventose
- Germinal
- Floreal
- Prarial
- Messidor
- Thermidor
- Fructidor
- Vendemiaire
- Brumaire
- Frimaire
- Nivose
People who know their Latin roots might know what these months are named after, but here’s a guide:
- “pluviosus”, meaning “rain”
- “ventosus”, meaning “windy”
- “germen”, meaning “germination” (of a plant)
- “flos”, meaning “flower”; or “floreo”, meaning “blossom” (of a flower)
- “prairie” (field)
- “messis”, meaning “harvest”
- “θερμός”, meaning “hot” in Greek
- “fructus”, meaning “fruit”
- “vindemia”, meaning “vintage” (harvesting of grapes)
- “brume”, meaning “fog” in French
- “frimas”, meaning “frost” in French
- “nivosus”, meaning “snowy”
Today (2026-03-23 UTC) would be the 23rd of Germinal, 2026 CE.
Wait, I thought the French Republican Calendar had 10 months only?
iniciary, seconduary, ternuary, foursh, fifsh, siksh, septembre, ocrobre, novembre, december, oncember, docember
It kind of annoys me that the months named for their position don’t line up to that position anymore.
September - (7) 9th
October - (8) 10th
November - (9) 11th
December - (10) 12th
But if we have the option to make big changes I’d be interested in going for 13 months.
My birthday would be on a Saturday forever. I’m fine with this.
Here, is this better?
Monember
Dicember
Triember
Tetrember
Pentamber
Hexamber
September
October
November
December
Undecember
Dodecember
You know what… I’ve never seen this before, but I fully endorse this solution. This is mostly what we already have in place, but favoring consistency rather than flattering Roman emperors.
For those who didn’t know,
- August - named after Augustus Caesar
- July - named after Julius Caeser
Also, a few others are named after Roman gods. It’s cool, but not super relevant to anyone today.
Love it. Send me a calendar with firefighter pugs.
I’ll second the IFC. My only addition would be that the Year Day and the Leap Day are mandatory holidays: fucking everything except critical utility infrastructure shift/on-call work (police, fire, power/water/sewage, etc) is closed. Employers must not require an employee to work consecutive Year or Leap Days.
If you edit your comment to enclose the link in square brackets and an exclamation point at before the open bracket it will show the image. Like below:
![link]If you copy this, just remove the `, those are there to show it as code rather than trying to display an empty image, and replace the work link
Thanks! I’m not gonna edit it on my cell. If anyone wants to, go for it! I don’t own the image, I just thought it was relevant
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B
1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 10, 12
1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 10, 12, 13
4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42
These ones are bad
This is the right answer. 13 months of 4 weeks and an extra day on the last month.
How does this line up with lunar cycles? Is the solar year closer to 12 or 13 months?
Edit: I decided to answer my own question. It turns out there are about 12.4 lunar cycles per solar year, so it does fall right between 12 and 13, meaning that (in my opinion) both 12 and 13 months seem like reasonable systems.
Unfortunately it also means there’s no way to really sync the months with the year perfectly.
A side note on the solar year/lunar month not lining up… I know that planets in a star system tend to fall into resonant orbits, so you’ll often see common ratios in planetary orbital periods, making occultations more common (when planets all line up). But I actually don’t know how this relates to a planet’s moons.
1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13
4, 4, 4, 4, 7
I do not like this. No sir.
But then dates written like 2026-01-01 in the old format would be interpreted as being one month ahead! The reverse may also happen too. That sounds like a very bad idea
Well days of the month would need to be zero indexed as well
Oneuary, twouary, threeuary, fouruary, fiveuary, sixuary, sevenuary, eightuary, nineuary, tenuary, elevenuary, twelveuary
If you do that in Latin, you get names like September, October, and December. Just make sure not to randomly insert two extra months, making sevenuary by the 9th month.
The idea that July and August were added and shifted the months to be wrong is actually a misconception afaik. The months they replaced were already basically “fiveuary” and “sixuary”.
The numbering got shifted off when they decided January should be the first month; it used to be March. February was the last month, which explains why leap days are added to February.Monuary, Dotuary, Trituary, Quadtember, Quintober, Sextember, September, October, November, December, Undecember, Dodecember
Oneember, Twoember, Threeember, Fourember, Fiveember, Sixember, Sevenember, Eightember, November (just to fuck with people), Tenember, Elevenember, Twelveember
- Onech
- Twoch
- Threech
- Fourch
- Fivech
- Sixch
- Sevench
- Eightch
- Ninech
- Tench
- Eleventh
- Twelvech
I was thinking about tossing in one “Greg” just to keep things interesting
Also not a bad idea at all :)
April, August, December, Februrary, March, May, January, July, June, November, October, September
(i.e. the existing names but alphabetised)
(EDIT: J traditionally comes before M. Am idiot.)
i guess your alphabet is a little different to mine. But i can dig it.
Nope. I’m just old and stupid.
This would make things so much easier in Excel
This wouldn’t be a good idea, as then people would easily mix up dates using the old names with your system (e.g. January would go from being the first month to being the seventh!)
The Japanese got it right: Just number them. First month, second month etc.
Same in Chinese
Weird that they sold one off in the middle of the year to advertise a media streaming device/app though.
I mean, they also named the one before it after one of their favorite board games, so I think anything’s fair game.
Now tell me about their 72 seasons.
In which language, English? Though why would renaming them in English require the approval of everyone in the world?
I’d say you don’t even need the approval of everyone living in an English-speaking country. It’s not like the US and UK use all the same words, for example. I think it’s fine for one English country to unilaterally rename them, no need for wider approval.
