Creating A Fictional Calendar
In this post we will create a fictional calendar system, just for fun. But we are going to build not something completely fantastical, but a calendar that actually works for planet earth. Leap years included.
The Goal
What are we trying to achieve here? What are the limitations/contraints we set ourself, and what do we want to aim for within these limitations?
We do not want, to create just a completely random calendar. We do want it to make sense. To feel like something that could actually happen, that in some alternate history could have actually become our calendar. Wo don’t want it to go completely crazy and off the rails. We want to make a “good” calendar. One that works, and has it’s own benefits.
We want a calendar that feels like something that came out of a specific culture and society. That embodies certain principles of that culture. That reflects their rhythm of life, maybe their beliefs, etc. We also want it to be applicaple to the real planet earth, and especially to my homeland of Europe - that means 365 days a year, and a leap year with an extra day every four years.
As an additional constraint I’d like to make it perennial calendar. That means, the same date in the year, always is the same day of the week. First day of the year would always be a “Monday”. And I’d like to lean into that naming of things. We could just have numbers - Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 - all the way to Day 365. No need for weeks or months or anything. But that’s not comfortable to humans - and that’s why be break things up. We divide the year into named months, and the week into named days. And we often rely on those names, because they are easier to remember and hold in our heads - then the numbers are. I want to lean into that even more - an create a calendar where people barely use numbers at all. Where everything is named. So, that’s the goal.
The History Of Weekday Names
So, without going into too much depth, the weekday names we are using are a bit of a mess, a weird mix of various sources:
- Monday - Mōnandæg, “Moon’s day”
- Tuesday - Tīwesdæg, “Tiw’s day” / “Tyr’s day”
- Wednesday - Wōdnesdæg, “Woden’s day” / “Odin’s day”
- Thursday - Þūnresdæg, “Thunder’s day” / “Thor’s day”
- Friday - Frīgedæg, “Frigg’s day” / “Freya’s Day”
- Saturday - Sæturnesdæg, “Saturn’s Day”
- Sunday - Sunnandæg, “Sun’s Day”
So, we got a few days named after germanic gods. One day named after Saturn, which is both a planet and a roman god. And two days named after the sun and the moon, respectively. But parallel to that, Tuesday is also seen as the day of Mars (both god and planet), Wednesday is seen as the day of Mercury, Thursday as day of Jupiter and Friday as the day of Venus. At the same time, some cultures call the Saturday not after Saturn, but Sabbath (day of rest) instead.
Old germanic traditions also had a literal “laundry day”. Like, that was an actual day of the week.
So, it does feel perfectly normal, to have a calendar that’s a bit of a weird mix of different traditions, and language drift and even words changing their writing to fit their pronouncation, rather then their meaning. That gives us a lot of leeway - and also allows us to invent new names, should we need additional days of the week: Jovday, Heimday (more germanic gods), Marsday, Jupiterday, Venusday (more planets/roman gods), etc.
It probably makes sense to keep the existing weekday names for familiarity. Inventing completly new names seems just needlessly confusing - but keeping the existing weekday names would help a reader to easier understand the order of days (which comes first, etc.). But if we wanted to make the names more foreign-sounding, we could just change them a little: Thursday could become Thorsday. Friday could become Freyday. Tuesday could become Tewsday. Still recognisable, but also different.
How To Divvy Up The Year
I believe the best way to get a perennial calender, is to divide the year into 12 months of 30 days each - and then turn the remaining 5 days into special celebratory holidays that are not considered part of the regular rhythm. Like those don’t have a weekday name - but their own special name. They are not considered weekdays. So, 5 days end-of-year celebration, and then start with Monday again.
That gives us nice little groups. Like, every four years, we have a special year, that has one extra celebration day. That’s gonna be special. And given that four-year cycle already exists, we can use that to name those four years. Year of “somthing-or-other”. Then we could divide the year into 12 named months - or maybe divide it into 4 seasons, and then divide each season into 3 months. And then, we could divide each month, into 3 weeks, having 10 days each.
Ten makes a lot of sense, because people have 10 fingers, and to math in base-10 because of that. We got to hands, that have 5 fingers each. And that’s how we count things. So let’s make a week have two “hands” with 5 days each. Makes perfect sense.
That means, we got 4 years, 4 seasons, 3 months, 3 weeks, 2 “hands”, 5 days. And now we can name all these things!
Days
Let’s say, we want our basic rhythm to be 4 days of work - 1 day of rest.
For the four work days, let’s just keep the normal names:
- Monday
- Tuesday
- Wensday
- Thursday
Yes, I introduced a little bit of extra language drift to Wednesday. I wrote it as Wensday. That’s how you pronounce it, isn’t it? It’s still perfectly recognisable, familiar - but just a little bit off. But a reader will understand that “Wensday” = “fantasy Wednesday”. But of course, you could come up with other, more fantastical names, if you wanted to.
And then, the fifth day shall be “Marketday”. Named after it’s purpose. Which also immediately means, that it’s not a day of rest for everyone - because of course traders and sellers are gonna have to work on that day.
Let’s further modify that, by making the first market (first half) of the week different from the second market (second half) of the week. Let’s have the first market be:
- Monday
- Tuesday
- Wensday
- Thursday
- Marketday
but the second market instead is:
- Monday
- Tuesday
- Wensday
- Thursday
- “religious, holy day” - like Sunday, for example
So, having a market every 10 days is perfectly fine for non-perishable goods - but assuming that calendar was developed in pre-refrigeration times, 10 days is too much for fresh produce that spoils. Sunday must include market. But it could be “small market”, that’s limited to fresh produce only (fruit, veggies, meat, milk, eggs, etc.) - and stops at noon, leaving the afternoon truly free of work for everyone.
Now, instead of calling them “first market” and “second market” - we can call them “big market” and “small market”. First market of the week is “big market”, second market of the week is “small market”. One has “Marketday”, the other has “Sunday”. And people can reference that when speaking, so we no longer need “first” or “second”. And we have that goal to make people use less numbering in every day language, right?
Every big market day is supposed to be a day free of physical labour - but open to commerce and politics. Every small market day is supposed to be free of all labour, except for the small produce market. Historically, in our own past, it used to be 6 days of labour - 1 day of rest. But in modern times, it has become 5 days of work - 2 days free. And having those two days in direct succession helps, because it allows for weekend-trips and things like that.
How would that work in our fictional calendar? I think that maybe people get one hand (half a week, 5 days) off each month - but when exactly that happens can vary from job to job. Since there’s a Marketday or “Sunday” directly preceeding that, it’s actually 6 free days in a row. That’s infnitely more usable than just a weekend. And there would be laws in place, that make it easier for families to have their free days align, so they can do something together. Our real calendar with it’s 5 working days and 2 free days, offers roughly 8 free days (over the year it’s 8.7 days on average) a month this way. Our fictional calendar would then offer exactly 10 free days. I think that’s fine, but if you want to reduce that to exactly 8 free days - you could make “big market days” having only the afternoon off, making them half a day of work.
And - I have yet another idea for those “Sundays”, that ties in with the weeks!
Weeks
So, we have three weeks in a month. And precisely so - every month always starts with a Monday, and ends with a “Sunday”. And on top of that, we would like to name our weeks - so that it is not 1, 2, 3.
So, how about:
- Sunweek
- Moonweek
- Earthweek
Because then, that first week could end with “Sunday”, the second week could end with “Moonday” and the third week could end with “Earthday”. And then you have a lot of names to reference.
Let’s meet next Earthweek - I’ve got time on the Tuesday after Moonday or on the Thursday before Earthday.
That works! And now every Month looks the same:
| # | Sunweek |
|---|---|
| 1 | Monday |
| 2 | Tuesday |
| 3 | Wensday |
| 4 | Thursday |
| 5 | Marketday |
| 6 | Monday |
| 7 | Tuesday |
| 8 | Wensday |
| 9 | Thursday |
| 10 | Sunday |
| # | Moonweek |
|---|---|
| 11 | Monday |
| 12 | Tuesday |
| 13 | Wensday |
| 14 | Thursday |
| 15 | Marketday |
| 16 | Monday |
| 17 | Tuesday |
| 18 | Wensday |
| 19 | Thursday |
| 20 | Moonday |
| # | Earthweek |
|---|---|
| 21 | Monday |
| 22 | Tuesday |
| 23 | Wensday |
| 24 | Thursday |
| 25 | Marketday |
| 26 | Monday |
| 27 | Tuesday |
| 28 | Wensday |
| 29 | Thursday |
| 30 | Earthday |
If it bothers you that we now have both “Monday” and “Moonday”, which are kinda the same thing in meaning - you can rename “Monday” to something else. To me it seems fine, since “Monday” does not make me think of “Moon” anyway… the name has become abstract, divorced from it’s original meaning.
Months
We still got 12 months, so in theory we could keep our existing month names in place, and that would be perfectly fine. January through December would work without issue. But I would like to change that, just for fun. Because 12 is a big number, and remembering all 12 month names in the correct order is something you have to learn by heart - and there’s a reason people like to use the numbers for the months. The number of different things/names that the average human can keep in their short-term memory at once, is about 7 - twelve is too much. Since we want to de-emphasize the numbers, I think it would be simpler to just tie the month-names into the seasons.
If we divide our year into 4 season, then we need just 3 months per season - and that would allow us to simply use “early”, “middle” and “late”.
| # | Spring |
|---|---|
| 3 | Early Spring (March) |
| 4 | Mid Spring (April) |
| 5 | Late Spring (May) |
| # | Summer |
|---|---|
| 6 | Early Summer (June) |
| 7 | Mid Summer (July) |
| 8 | Late Summer (August) |
| # | Autumn |
|---|---|
| 9 | Early Autumn (September) |
| 10 | Mid Autumn (October) |
| 11 | Late Autumn (November) |
| # | Winter |
|---|---|
| 12 | Early Winter (December) |
| 1 | Mid Winter (January) |
| 2 | Late Winter (Febuary) |
That means, our year would start on the day that equals March 1. That would be the first day of the year - Big Market Monday of Early Spring Sunweek.
And with the month-names gone, it also becomes less overloaded to have year-names for those 4 years in every cycle.
Years
In order to name those 4 years, we need something new. I wouldn’t want to use god’s names again, or to repurpose month-names for this, or anything that overlaps with something else.
For a fantasy setting, we could of course very generically use:
| # | Cycle |
|---|---|
| 1 | Year of Fire |
| 2 | Year of Water |
| 3 | Year of Earth |
| 4 | Year of Air |
But I have another idea that works great for a society what historically was a matriarchy!
| # | Cycle |
|---|---|
| 1 | Year of the Maiden |
| 2 | Year of the Bride |
| 3 | Year of the Mother |
| 4 | Year of the Matron |
Of course those 4 names could be easily changed to a patriarchial system as well. But in this case, the 6th extra holiday (leap day) at the end of every fourth year, would then be “Matron’s day” - the biggest, most holy holiday of them all.
And of course these cycles would be represented in many other things. Like, governmental votes could happen once a cycle (every four years). So could world cups. The olympics. Primary school could last a cycle. Apprenticeship could last a cycle. It is a very useful unit of time, and it makes perfect sense to use it that way.
Conclusion
And there you have it - a fictional, perennial calendar system! And I feel there is some real world-building in there. It feels like it tells you something about the society that’s using this calendar, and about their past and history. We know it is a culture that values regularity and repeating cycles.
- One Cycle = 4 years (Maiden, Bride, Mother, Matron)
- One year = 4 seasons (spring, summer, autumn, winter)
- One season = 3 months (early, middle, late)
- One month = 3 weeks (Sunweek, Moonweek, Earthweek)
- One week = 2 markets (big market, small market)
- One market = 5 days (Monday, Tuesday, Wensday, Thursday, Marketday)
- Last day of each week has a special name (Sunday, Moonday, Earthday)
It does allow for it’s own unique style of usage - with people using names to specify dates, rather than numbers:
Sunweek Tuesday in Early.
The Monday after next Earthday.
Thursday before next Moonday.
Mother’s Year Late Autumn Earthday.
Early Winter Sunweek Marketday.
On top of that, people would also probably prefer saying “ON day X” instead of saying “in 2 weeks” - and prefer saying “UNTIL named time” instead of saying “FOR 2 months”. People could also give their age in cycles, rather than years. When more granularity is needed, the doctor would probably not ask how many years a child is old - but whether it was born during “Maiden” or “Bride”… that’s perfectly enough to nail it down, and also perfectly in line with people not using numbers that much.
And since they do talk that way, that immediately adds it’s own unique flavour to any story or writing that takes place in that world.
But it’s hopefully not too overly confusing to the reader - because they still understand the ordering of Monday - Tuesday - Wensday - Thursday, and of course “early Spring” and “late Autumn” are clear as well. If used cleverly when writing, it still should be possible to make intuitively clear to the reader, which event comes first, and which comes later.
But most importantly, it works. It is a valid calendar that I feel does make sense. It’s not just some random stuff for the sake of being different. Being perennial it has some actual advantages over our real calendar even. Comes with it’s own downsides as well of course, but so does everything.
I had fun creating this calendar. Hope you too had some fun reading about it!
See you next time!