Do You Hate Moon's Day?

I didn’t realize Monday was referring to the Moon until I learned Italian in 1999. In that language it Monday is Lunedi, which “luna” is moon and then it all clicked where each day of the week got its name. I realized all the days of the week in Italian were mostly from Roman gods and planets. In English, most of the days of the week come from Norse mythology. Had no idea until today that Thor got a whole day named after him. Respect!

Monday is actually always been one of my favorite days. I always thought it was the first day of the week. It meant the end of Sunday, which I didn’t enjoy as a kid, for reasons I explain below. I never really dreaded that day coming because it usually had unknown adventure starting at school or work. Now it is the day that my entire company gets on a call at 9am and we get to talk about big picture ideas and how we will get there. My post tomorrow on personality types explains a lot about why my ENTP disliked Sunday as a child and resonated with Monday.

🌞

Sunday

• English: Sunday – from “Sun’s Day”

• Latin: Dies Solis – “Day of the Sun”

• 🔥 Named for the Sun, the celestial body itself. Worshipped in many cultures as the source of life.

🌙

Monday

• English: Monday – from “Moon’s Day”

• Latin: Dies Lunae – “Day of the Moon”

• 🌑 Named for the Moon, often linked to intuition, femininity, and cycles.

⚔️

Tuesday

• English: Tuesday – from Tiw’s Day, after the Norse god Tiw (Tyr), god of war

• Latin: Dies Martis – “Day of Mars”

• 🔴 Both honor the god of war: Mars (Roman) and Tiw (Germanic/Norse)

🧪

Wednesday

• English: Wednesday – from Woden’s Day (Woden/Odin, chief Norse god)

• Latin: Dies Mercurii – “Day of Mercury”

• 🟡 Odin and Mercury were both messenger gods, associated with wisdom, communication, and travel

⚡

Thursday

• English: Thursday – from Thor’s Day (Thor, Norse god of thunder)

• Latin: Dies Iovis – “Day of Jupiter (Jove)”

• ⚡ Both Jupiter and Thor wield lightning and are top-tier thunder gods

💀

Friday

• English: Friday – from Frigg’s Day (Frigg or Freya, Norse goddesses of love and beauty)

• Latin: Dies Veneris – “Day of Venus”

• 💋 Venus, Frigg, and Freya are all goddesses of love, fertility, and beauty

🛡️

Saturday

• English: Saturday – from Saturn’s Day (the Roman god Saturn)

• Latin: Dies Saturni – “Day of Saturn”

• 🪐 Saturn represents discipline, structure, and time, also linked to agriculture

• 

After an hour of trying to work with DALLE to get all 7 days into an image, I surrendered. No matter how nice I asked or how well I described the image I wanted, it could not do all 7 days of the week. So Friday and Venus are not represented, but whatever…I tried.

In Mormonism there is a series of songs you sing as a child at church that attempt to teach you the basic theology and culture. In this song “Saturday is a Special Day” the song instructs you to make Saturday a day of preparation for Sunday. This song had the reverse effect on me, because I didn’t very much enjoy Sunday as a kid. This song to me was an obvious attempt at mind control to my 6-year-old brain. I thought to myself, “you already made Sunday no fun and now you want to take my Saturday, too! I go to school each day of the week and now my 2 days off are to be used getting ready and going to boring church where I sit for 3 hours!!

Many Mormons growing up in 80s probably had similar policy of no friends on Sunday. There was little about Sunday for Mormon kids that didn’t suck, that’s the truth. I think things have changed culturally, but really I have no idea. Not something I am passing down to my children. Sunday is the best day of the week again. It’s set apart to be a day of Sun, whatever that means to the individual.