How The Days Of The Week Were Named?

In the very early history of man, there was a time when days of the week had no names. The names had not been invented, was a hot simple reason.

The sole division of time was the month and the number of days being too many could not be named separately. Men wanted separate days to trade, a market day. Sometimes the market day would come off at an interval of the tenth day, every seventh, or every fifth day. The Babylonians decided that it should be every seventh day. On this day they did not work but only met for trade and religious festivals. It was then when men began to build cities.

The Jews followed, but kept every seventh day for religious Purposes, giving rise to the existence of a week. This seven-day period was a space between the market days. Every day of the week was named with the name assigned to the seven days. It was really a number after the Sabbath day (Saturday) Wednesday was called the fourth day (four days after Saturday).

The Egyptians adopted the seven-day week and named the days after five planets, the Sun and the Moon. The Romans used the Egyptian names for their days of the week: the day of the sun, of the moon, of the planet Mars, of Mercury, of Jupiter, of Venus, and of Saturn.

The names for the days, we get not froth Romans, but from the Anglo Saxons, who named the days after their own gods, which were the same gods as of Romans. The days of the moon were called Monandaeg, or Monday. The day of Mars became the day of Tius, who was their god of war. This became Tiwesdaeg or Tuesday. Instead of Mercury’s name, that of the god Wooden was given to Wednesday. The Roman day of Jupiter, the thunderer became the day of the thunder god Thor, and this became Thursday. The next day was named for Frigg, the wife of their god Odin, and so we have Friday. The day of Saturn became Saeternsdaeg, a translation from the Romans, and then Saturday.

A day, used to be counted between sunrise and sunset. The Romans counted it as from midnight to midnight, and most modern nations use this method.