13 May, 2011

Culture

Name Day

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

Name days are commonly of less importance than birthdays to Czech people. However, name day celebrations can be, and often are, held together with friends or co-workers of the same name and in this way it can grow in size and importance.

In the past, by law, 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 changes have been made to reflect the present-day usage of names.

Check to see if you have a Czech name equivalent here: http://www.namedaycalendar.com/czech

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