Paul Vigil, age 10, of Phoenix, Ariz., for his question:
HOW DID THE MONTHS GET THEIR NAMES?
Some of our months were named for numbers and others for important people who lived some 2,000 years ago. Some were named for gods and goddesses who never lived at all. Through the ages, the names have changed somewhat, but the original meanings are still there.
When early hunters settled down to become farmers, they needed records of the changing seasons. Various groups invented their calendars. But they were not sure of the number of days and the lunar months refused to fit neatly into the calendar year. So their calendars were remodeled many times.
The origin of our calendar was invented by the Roman ruler Romulus, way back in 738 B.C. It had 10 months, most of them named with Latin numbers. A century or so later, January and February were added to the end of the year, making a 12¬month calendar.
This calendar did not match the passing seasons so in 46 B.C. it was remodeled by Julius Caesar. January, named for the god Janus became the first month, and February became the second. It was named for the time when people prepared for the coming festivals of spring.
March, named for Mars the god of war, originally was the first month. Caesar moved it to third place. April, meaning to open, was named for the season of bursting spring buds. May was named for Maia, the flowery goddess of spring. June was named for Juno, goddess of marriages.
Quintilis, the original fifth month, became the seventh month and was renamed July in honor of Julius Caesar. Later the Roman emperor Augustus also wanted a month of his own. So Sextilis, the original sixth month became August, the eighth month.
Originally, September and October, November and December were named for months seven, eight, nine and 10. These names were not changed when they became the last four on Caesar's 12 month calendar.
Caesar's calendar was based on 365 days, which is about a quarter day short of the true year. In 1582, this error was corrected with a more accurate system of leap years. This gave us our present Gregorian calendar ¬which still keeps the names of the months borrowed from Caesar's old calendar of 46 B.C.