9.1 – Jmeniny – Name Day

Dnes má svátek…

In the Czech Republic, each day of the year except national holidays corresponds to a personal name. People celebrate their name day (svátek or more formally jmeniny) on the date corresponding to their own given name.

In the past, parents were not allowed to choose just any name for a child. This has changed, although it is still common to choose the name from the name day "calendar" and any highly unusual name has to be approved by a special office. The original list was the Roman Catholic calendar of saints, but many changes were made to reflect the present-day usage of names. The word svátek comes from the word svatý ‘holy, saint’, while the word jmeniny is related to jméno ‘name’.

The name day is commonly of less importance than birthdays to Czech people and is celebrated just in some families. However the name day celebration can be held together with friends or co-workers of the same name and in this way it can grow in size and "importance". As times progress, fewer and fewer people celebrate their name days and many young people do not celebrate it at all. One’s name day is more recently more likely a reason to celebrate for the sake of celebrating, or for giving a present to somebody one loves.

It is common to wish someone a happy name day:

všechno nejlepší k svátku        Happy name day! (all the best for your name day)

See here for a list of all name days – Wikipedie – Jmeniny v Česku

Text Adapted From:

Name days in the Czech Republic – Wikipedia

Source – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_days_in_the_Czech_Republic

License – CC-BY-SA 3.0