Name Day

There are 365 days in a year. In the Czech Republic each day has one or two corresponding names. It use to be that parents had to name their children after a particular day. The children did not have to be named after the day they were born. Instead, their name had to be one of the names from the calendar. If you wanted to name your child a different name, you had to get permission from the government. Today, you can name your child whatever you want, but there is incentive to using a name from the calendar. When your name falls on a particular date that date is your Name Day. On this day you usually get gifts and goodies, and people say "Happy Name Day." You still celebrate your birthday - this is just another reason the celebrate. This all means two things: 1. Most calenders have names written on each date. 2. There are a few names that are very popular. In one of my classes there are three Petrs (Peter), three Martins, and five Honza or Jans. Another class has three Kubas (Jakob) and two Michals (Michael). Each name also has many nicknames or variations. Jan, pronounced Yan, is the Czech equivalent of John. And Jan can also be Honza, or the female version, Jana. A name like Lucy can be shortened (actually made longer) to Lucka, which sounds like Loots-kuh. Or Zuzana to Zuzka or Zuzie. So while there are fewer popular names, knowing which student wants to be called Jan and which student wants to be called Honza can be confusing.

To return to the idea of having a day for each name; most names are in someway biblical or historical. So it makes sense that the Czech equivalent to Adam and Eve (Adame and Eva) are celebrated on the same day, December 24th. I am lucky to have the name Miriam because it happens to be in a lot languages and religions. While Miriam is not very popular among Czech women (some men are named Mira), it does have a Name Day! On Monday, November 5th, I celebrated my Name Day. The two women in my office were absent from school and no one said anything to me about my Name Day, so by lunchtime I was getting a little disappointed. I thought, "maybe everyone thought I wouldn't notice it was my Name Day!" But after lunch one of my students shook my hand and said "Happy Name Day!" Then I went to talk with a teacher whose class I was planning a lesson for and before I left her office, she and three other teachers said "Happy Name Day," gave me a homemade plum pastry and a wrapped present. They told me to celebrate the day by drinking tea and eating biscuits and they all shook my hand and gave me a kiss on the cheek. When I got home I was so excited that I opened my gift right away. It was a box of chocolate cookies! And it was perfect!