People just discovering why October is the 10th month - and it's not what you think - The Mirror

October is the 10th month in the calendar, even though 'octo' normally means eight, and it turns out there's a rather strange reason why the months have shifted

The months of our calendar are technically incorrect for a strange reason.

Have you ever wondered why October is the 10th month, even though in most other cases, the prefix "octo" means eight? Think of an octagon having eight sides or an octopus having eight tentacles. The same is true for September being the ninth month instead of the seventh, November being 11 instead of nine, and December being 12 instead of 10.

It's commonly thought that the months shifted when Julius Caesar was honoured with the month of July, and the first Roman emperor, Augustus Caesar, got the month of August dedicated to him. But that's not entirely true, as those months still existed under different names - Quintilus (five) and Sextilus (six) - before they were renamed.

In reality, the reason the months shifted is even more strange. It's all to do with a part of the yearly calendar that was completely omitted from old versions of the system we know today.

According to a woman on TikTok named Astrid, the reason the months don't line up with their numbered prefixes is because "winter" used to be entirely separate from the normal calendar, which only ran from March until December.

In her video, Astrid explained: "So who can we blame for this if not Julius and Augustus? Whose fault is it that the months and their numbers don't line up? You might have noticed that this system counts up to 10. You might, therefore, be wondering, were January and February months 11 and 12? No, they weren't. It's so much sillier than that.

"January and February did not exist in the original Roman calendar system. There was the year, which was 10 months from March to December, and then there was winter, which was not part of the year. It was a different thing. This guy, Numa Pompilius, is credited with dividing the winter period into January and February and sticking them onto the calendar.

"But Numa Pompilius is the semi-mythical second King of Rome who reigned after Romulus himself, and even later Roman historians said that this was such a distant time that there's really no way of knowing what was true and what wasn't. We just have enough evidence to confidently say this older calendar used to exist, and then at some point, January and February were added."

Astrid also noted that she thought it was funny that the Romans only bothered to name the first few months (March, April, May, and June) before resorting to numbers for the months that were, at the time, months five to 10.

In the comments, it was also explained that January was made the start of the year instead of the 11th month because it was named after Janus, the Roman God of beginnings, so it was decided January would start each new year. Other commenters also joked that we should return to winter not being "a real time".

One person said: "I support reinstating winter as not a real time and letting us all have a rest in Jan and Feb." Another added: "I love the idea of a loose period of time between years. We just finished one year, and immediately, we have to start another? No. we need a break before doing a year again."

A third argued January and February should be at the end of the year, stating: "Leap day should absolutely be the final day of the year, with March as the first month, so Oct/Nov/Dec line up with their names and every day retains its Nth day position regardless of leap years."

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