what's up with October?

Question

Why is it that the tenth month is called October, given that 'oct' means eight? one would think it would be the eighth. i tend to ask people unanswerable questions . . . .i think this one should have an answer though.

Answer 1

Weird, but true you are absolutely correct october is actually named october because it was the 8th month, it was moved when the old Julian calender became the new Gregorian calendar. Yet no names were changed to protect the innocent.

Answer 2

Good question! I had never given this any thought, but just checked into it a minute ago. I hadn't realized that October actually USED to be the 8th month, before January & February were inserted as months in the calendar. The link to where I found the information is:

http://www.lz95.lake.k12.il.us/mss/birthdays/octbdays/10_28/originofoct.html

If this link is not clickable, you can just use your left mouse button to highlight the web link page, then right click with your mouse, and select copy. You can then put your mouse at the address bar window and right click to select paste, & then hit your enter button to go to the page to check it out. Google is the search engine I used to quickly locate he information.

Answer 3

Because according to the first Latin calendar the first month was Mars (March) and according to that calendar October was the eighth month.

Answer 4

The original Roman year had 10 named months Martius "March", Aprilis "April", Maius "May", Junius "June", Quintilis "July", Sextilis "August", September "September", October "October", November "November", December "December", and probably two unnamed months in the dead of winter when not much happened in agriculture.

Answer 5

It was the eighth month of the Roman calendar.