January
From Latin, meaning "belonging to Janus". The name is rare in Poland: most people here will never meet one, and every bearer is a man.
January Pronunciation
January is pronounced yah-noo-AH-rih (/januˈarɨ/).
What January means
Where January comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
January comes from the Latin Ianuarius, the name Rome gave its first month, and that word grew from Janus, the god of doorways, gates, and beginnings. The short meaning follows plainly: belonging to Janus. The god was shown with two faces. One looked back at the year that had ended, the other ahead at the year opening.
As a given name, January belongs mostly to the English-speaking world, where it stays uncommon and stands alone, with no settled diminutives or variants. Its best-known bearer is the American actress January Jones, from the series Mad Men. Her parents took the name from January Wayne, a character in Jacqueline Susann's 1973 novel Once Is Not Enough.
So the name reaches modern ears through a Roman deity by way of a bestselling paperback. It stays close to its root all the same. To carry January is to carry Ianuarius, belonging to Janus, the two-faced keeper of the threshold.
When January celebrates name day
January appears 10 times in the Polish name day calendar, 1 of them as a main name, the first on 19 September.
The days Polish calendars list this name on. By custom you celebrate one of them, usually the first after your birthday.
Rarer dates. Only the most complete calendars add this name on these days. Most skip them, so hardly anyone celebrates then.
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in 131 days19 JanuaryTuesday in 2027
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in 210 days8 AprilThursday in 2027
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in 236 days4 MayTuesday in 2027
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in 303 days10 JulySaturday in 2027
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in 330 days6 AugustFriday in 2027
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in 352 days28 AugustSaturday in 2027
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in 33 days13 OctoberTuesday in 2026
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in 44 days24 OctoberSaturday in 2026
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in 45 days25 OctoberSunday in 2026
How many people are named January
1 in 49185 men in Poland is named January. 434 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #1421 among male names.
January's popularity over time
Fewer than 2 boys were given the name in 2025. It has been stable for a decade.
January as a middle name
January is a first name for 434 men in Poland and a middle name for another 384, a 53/47 split, almost evenly. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 359th, between Zbysław (388) and André (383).
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#357 Franz389
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#358 Zbysław388
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#359 January384
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#360 André383
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#361 Apoloniusz383