Stephen Ferg, age 14’ of Tucson, Ariz., for his question:

How did the months get their names?

Our days of the week were named by the ancient Norsemen. The months were named by the Romans as they tried to work out a sensible calendar. The year and the day are based on the movements of our planet as it dances its eternal. hoedown through the heavens. The words moon and month are related, though the 12 months in the calendar year do not at all tally with the lunar months. A lunar month is about 27 and one third days. It is the time it takes the moon to go through its four phases as it orbits the earth.

Perhaps the earliest calendar makers tried to make the lunar months fit neatly into a calendar year: But the job cannot be done and, so far as we know, the Romans never tried. Their first calendar had ten months, starting with March and ending with December. Around 700 B.C, they decided to remake their old calendar. Two months, January and February, were tacked onto the end of the year after December. Three hundred years later, the calendar was rearranged again and January and February were moved up front to head the parade of months.

January was named for the Roman god  Janus, a strange fellow with an extra face on the back of his head. Janus, like the month of January, looks backward at the old year and forward to the new year. February, the poor little leap year month, comes from an old word meaning smoke or fumes. February 15 was a Roman festival of purification by burnt offering. February was named in honor of this smoky festival.

The experts do not entirely agree on how March came by its name. Some say it originally meant first and the month was named when it was the first month of the year. Others say that March is named for the raging delinquent Mars, who was the Roman god of tsar.

Aprilis name comes from a word meaning to open. Surely this refers to the opening buds and bursting blossoms. Gentle May is named for Maia, goddess of spring, June may be named for Juno, queen of the Roman gods. It may also mean join, for it is the month of weddings. In Roman times. June was sacred to young people and its name may come from the same word that gives us juvenile.

July is named for Julius Caesar in honor of the work he did to improve the old Roman calendar. August is named for Augustus Caesar. September, October, November and December have kept the names they had in the old, old calendar, though their meanings have been incorrect for more than 2,300 years. September means seventh, October means eighth, November means ninth and December means tenth,