Days of the Week

My last post was about the names of months, so I thought I'd follow up with this one.

Sunday is obviously named for the sun.

Monday is named for the moon, although the spelling is different.

Tuesday is named for Tiw. He was the Germanic god of war.

Wednesday is named after Woden, That's a Germanic version of Odin, the Norse god of war.

Thursday is named for Thor, who was Oden's son. He was the god of thunder and also of war.

Friday is named after Oden's wife, Frig. Her name sometimes gets confused with Freya, who was a Germanic godess of love.

Unlike the Roman gods who the months are named after, all those deities are from northern Europe. But Saturday is named after Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture.

(I got this information from the 1958 College Edition of Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language.)