Name Days

Slovakia celebrates the tradition of “Name Day” once a year, in addition to their birthdays. Each day on the Slovak calendar has a name designated to it, or occasionally two names if they originate from the same root (for example: Dominik/Dominikia). (Also, sometimes there are names that are designated to a date, but not listed on the calender. These names may officially be given to children in Slovakia.) I think this is a nice tradition, because it’s yet another reason for celebrating. And it's great because you don't have to know someone really well to know when their name day is, and you can easily look at the calender to see and then greet them! They consider it a big deal, yet not as big as birthdays. At first I thought that everyone in Slovakia would choose to name their child a name within the Slovak calendar because they would want their child to have a Name Day (called “Meniny” in Slovak) to celebrate. But I eventually learned that babies in Slovakia must be named one of the calendar names, or they won’t receive a birth certificate in the country (or at least they won't without going through legal procedures in efforts to legalize the name). Exceptions for this are sometimes names in minority languages, or a foreign name, if the parents can show written proof from their corresponding embassy that the name does exist. I had fun telling Zuzka about how Americans often try to give their children unique names, or common names with original spellings, just for the sake of being different.

“Ashley is the most common spelling, but there are like five ways to spell it, that I know of. Probably more too.”
“What? How else would you even spell it?”
“Ashley. Ashlee. Ashlea. Ashlei. Ashli. Ashleigh. I’ve heard of all of these spellings before.”
“Really? How do you even pronounce this?? Ashl-e-ig….”
“They’re all pronounced exactly the same, but each is spelled different. Crazy because sometimes no one knows how to spell their names their entire lives.”

A random fact and fun coincidence: The name day for December 26th is Steffan, which is the Slovak version of Steven. My dad is Steven, so his name day is December 26th, and it also happens to be his birthday! Crazy, both on the same day. Wow, I bet the Slovak would have quite the celebration for that! Sadly, there is no Slovak version of Ashley, so I don’t have a name day, and neither does my mom, Dixie. But my dad has his, and my brother has one too. The Slovak version of Jacob is similar, Jakub, and the name is celebrated on July 25th. Most people here assume that America has this system also, and that we celebrate Name Days. They’re always surprised to hear that we don’t. We have SO MANY names that there’s no way we could make a one year calendar for all of them.