How Did the Days of the Week Get Their Names?

To talk about how we got the names of the days of the week, we have to go back in time—way back to 4000 BC, when the Babylonian civilization flourished in the Persian Gulf.

Ancient Babylonians First Divided the Year Into Weeks of Seven Days Each

Just as people have done throughout history, the Babylonians looked up to the sky. They tried to understand what was out there and how it might affect them. They could, of course, see the sun, and the moon, and the stars.  And rather amazingly, even without telescopes, they could see five planets—the five closest to Earth.   

And like everyone did until Copernicus came on to the scene in the 1500s, the Babylonians thought the Earth lay at the center of the universe, with everything else revolving around it. But the Babylonians also believed that we were intimately connected to the planets; that each planet ruled an individual hour of the day and an individual day of the week. 

Accordingly, they organized their life into a system of seven days, aligned to the seven celestial bodies they could see. The first two days of the week—our Sunday and Monday—were ruled by the Sun and the Moon. The next five were ruled by the planets. 

Notably, even back then, chilling the heck out was a thing. The Babylonians designated one day of the week as a day of rest. 

The Ancient Greeks Named the Days of the Week After Their Gods

Sometime around the 12th century BC, the ancient Greek civilization grew in prominence, and they adopted the Babylonian system of marking time. They continued to recognize the prominence of the sun and the moon, calling two days of the week hemera helio (day of the Sun) and hemera selenes (day of the Moon). Instead of naming the other five days after planets though, they named the days in honor of their gods. 

They named Tuesday for Ares, their savage god of war; Wednesday, for Hermes, the messenger of the gods, a trickster, and the god of commerce. Thursday they named for Zeus, god of the sky and thunder, and king of all other gods and men. Friday they named for Aphrodite, goddess of love. Saturday was named for Kronos, son of the creators of the universe, and the lovely guy who killed his father, ate his children, and was imprisoned by Zeus in Hades for being an all-around jerk.

The Romans Replaced the Names of the Greek Gods With Their Gods

Time kept on passing. In the first century BC, the Roman Empire began to emerge.  The Romans used the same seven...

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