How did December get its name as it is the 12th month of the year?

Answer 1

Actually, December got its name because it was the tenthmonth in the old Roman ten month calendar. The Latin cardinal number for ten is decem. The month was named after the number, not the other way round. The Latin for seven is septem; for eight, octo; for ninth, novem. The first month, January, was named for the God Janus, whose head looked both forward and backward. The original ten month calendar began with the vernal equinox and did not include 61 days of winter.

The are an amazing number of things in the western world which come to us through Rome. 'Mile', for example, is derived from the Latin for 'thousand', the number of steps Roman soldiers were trained to make in a set distance in exact simultaneous order in precise close formation. The Latin number 'decem' was derived from earlier languages, passing from Sanskrit through Greek to Latin, and even to English as 'decade'.