FIRE Finance: January's Best of FIRE Finance

January's Best of FIRE Finance - 2014

Edit Post Friday, January 31, 2014

Jan 31, 2014: January, the first month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars, is named for Janus (Ianuarius), the God of the Doorway. In Latin, the word for door is "ianua" - January is the door to the year.

The name has its beginnings in Roman mythology. Traditionally, the original Roman calendar consisted of 10 months which summed up to 304 days. Winter was considered a month less period! Around 713 BC, King Numa Pompilius, is supposed to have added the months of January and February. This made the Roman calendar equal a standard lunar year which consisted of 355 days. The flower of this month is carnation or snowdrop.

To continue with names, it's fun to observe that January had several interesting ones:

Original Roman name - Ianuarius (God of the Doorway)
The Saxon term - Wulf-monath (Wolf Month)
Charlemagne's designation - Wintarmanoth (Winter Month)
Finnish name - Tammikuu (Month of The Oak, but the original meaning was the month of the heart of winter) - Tammi means axis or core
Czech name -Leden (Ice Month)

So in the spirit of entering a wonderful new year via Janus's blessings, let's do a "Retro-January" ...

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