Maija’s Name Day – Name Days in Finland

MAIJA

Gender: Feminine

Usage: Finnish

Meaning & History: Finnish variant of Maria, Latin form of Greek Μαρια, (see Mary).

Maria is the usual form of the name in many European languages, as well as a secondary form in other languages such as English (where the common spelling is Mary). In some countries, for example Germany, Poland and Italy, Maria is occasionally used as a masculine middle name.

Source: http://www.behindthename.com/

Name Days in Finland - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Finns celebrate their name days (Finnish "nimipäivä") according to their given name on the date given by the calendar published by the University of Helsinki Almanac Office. Every day except New Year's Day, Christmas Day and February 29^th is a name day. For each day there are names in both Finnish and Swedish; the names are frequently, but not always, cognates.

Women are slightly underrepresented in the calendar: approximately 45 percent of name days celebrate only women while some 49 per cent are name days of men. The rest are those of names that may be given to either sex, such as Rauni (July 15^th), or have both a man's and a woman's name, such as Oliver and Olivia (May 29^th).

Many traditional beliefs attach to various name days, especially involving the weather and the appropriate times to perform seasonal agricultural tasks such as planting some particular crop. For example there is a saying that “Jaakko (James) casts a cold rock into the water”, meaning that on Jaakko's day, the 25^th of July, the waters start getting colder, which is not far from true on average.

The seven days from July 18^th to 24^th, being all women's name days, are known as the Women's Week. It is popularly believed to be an especially rainy week, and this is to some extent supported by statistics, as late July and early August are the rainiest time of the year in Finland.

The Almanac Office reviews the lists at intervals of 5–10 years, adding new names as they gain popularity and striking others that have faded into disuse. The university owns the copyright to the lists of names and their corresponding dates.

Tiina’s day happens to be the 24^th of July that ends the Women’s Week. My middle name is Maija, so today is also my name day. Though, I have sort of twisted my middle name a bit, as I use Maya online. It has nothing to do with the Maya civilization though. In Maya and Maija, the ‘y’ and ‘ij’ sound similar which is why I’m using Maya online instead of Maija.

By law, a Finn can have three first names at most. The common amount is two. Some names have been joined together with the hyphen. For example, my grandma’s name was Maija-Liisa. As the double vowel is very common in the Finnish language, international names such as Nora, Eva, Lisa, Ida, Sara(h), Maria, and Mona would be spelled as Noora, Eeva, Liisa, Iida, Saara, Maaria, and Moona. With Sara(h) and especially Maria, there are naturally several other variations too.

Some Finns celebrate their name days but not all do. Name day isn’t as big as birthday but it’s at least very common to wish people happy name day, just like people wish each other happy birthday. Flowers or little presents may be common too. Because my grandma’s and my name day is on the 2^nd of July, grandma always baked a cake at the summer cottage if I was there at the beginning of June – and we celebrated by having it with coffee on the porch.