A name day (also called a feast day or saints' day) is a tradition in many European and Latin American cultures of celebrating the calendar date associated with a person's first name. In countries such as Hungary, Poland, Sweden, Greece, and much of Catholic Europe, name days are marked as enthusiastically as birthdays — sometimes more so. The practice originated with the Catholic calendar of saints, where each day of the year is dedicated to one or more saints, and people named after that saint celebrate on that date.

Which calendar traditions does this tool cover?

The tool draws on four overlapping traditions. The Catholic calendar assigns saints' feast days to most days of the year and underpins name-day customs across Poland, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, and Latin America. The Orthodox calendar shares many saints but often places them on different dates, and is widely observed in Greece, Russia, Serbia, Romania, and Armenia. The Nordic calendar (used in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland) formalised name days in the sixteenth century; Sweden still publishes an official list through its National Day of Sweden. The Hungarian calendar is particularly rich — Hungary treats name days as a national cultural institution with its own authoritative list. All four traditions are merged here so a single search covers all variants.

What if my name appears on more than one date?

Many names appear in multiple traditions on different dates. For example, "Anthony" is celebrated on January 17 in the Catholic/Nordic tradition and on June 13 (the Feast of Anthony of Padua) in other Catholic regions. The tool returns every match and labels each result with its tradition, so you can pick the one that matches your cultural background or simply celebrate both.

My name is not in the list — why?

The database covers several hundred of the most common names across these four traditions, but it cannot be exhaustive. Modern invented names, very regional names, names unique to a single country's calendar, and names added to official lists in recent decades may be absent. As a fallback, look up the patron saint most associated with your name's etymology — many national name-day organisations publish full searchable lists online.

Are name days the same every year?

Yes. Unlike Easter-dependent moveable feasts, name days are tied to fixed calendar dates (month and day), so the date never shifts. The only exception is February 29, which only occurs in leap years; some traditions use February 28 or March 1 as a substitute in common years.

How is the countdown calculated?

The tool reads today's local date from your device, constructs the next calendar occurrence of the name day (this year if it has not yet passed, next year if it has), and computes the difference in whole days. The result is recalculated each time you change the name or date — no server or network call is involved at any point.

Name Day Finder — Gera Tools

A name day is the calendar date associated with a person’s first name — typically the feast day of the saint after whom the name derives. In Hungary, Poland, Sweden, Greece, Italy, Spain, and dozens of other countries, name days are celebrated with gifts, flowers, and messages in the same way as birthdays. In some traditions (Hungary and Greece especially) name-day celebrations are actually more important than birthdays.

This tool lets you do two things instantly, entirely in your browser:

Type a first name to find every date in the year when that name is celebrated, along with a live countdown to the next occurrence.
Pick a month and day to discover which names are honoured on that date across all traditions.

Which traditions are included?

The database merges four living name-day calendars:

Catholic — the universal Roman calendar of saints, forming the backbone of name-day customs in Poland, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, and Latin America.
Orthodox — shared saints’ days from the Eastern tradition, widely observed in Greece, Russia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Armenia.
Nordic — the Swedish/Norwegian/Danish formalised list, published as an official national calendar since the sixteenth century.
Hungarian — Hungary maintains one of Europe’s most complete and socially observed name-day registers, with entries updated periodically by the Research Institute for Linguistics.

Because traditions overlap, a search for “Peter” will surface both the June 29 Catholic feast (Peter and Paul) and the February 22 Chair of Peter, while “Anne” returns both July 26 and the August regional variants.

How the countdown works

The tool reads your device clock for today’s date, then computes the next calendar occurrence of each matching name day. If the date has already passed this year, it rolls forward to the following year. The result is the difference in whole days — no fractions, no time zones, no network calls.

Worked example

Searching for “John” returns several matches:

January 7 — Orthodox feast of John the Baptist (tradition: Orthodox).
June 24 — Birth of John the Baptist, widely celebrated in Catholic and Nordic calendars.
December 27 — Feast of John the Evangelist (Catholic).

If today is 1 June, the tool shows “In 23 days” next to June 24 — the nearest upcoming celebration. Click “Copy” to grab the date string for a message or calendar invite.

Searching by June 29 returns: Peter, Paul, Pietro, Paolo, Pablo, Pedro, Pawel, Petros — covering the Latin, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, and Greek forms of the same apostolic names.

Formula note

Name days are pure calendar look-ups — there is no arithmetic formula involved. The only calculation is the day-difference:

days_until = floor((target_date - today) / 86400000 ms)

where target_date is the next occurrence of that month/day combination (this year or next year if already past). All date arithmetic is performed using the JavaScript Date object on your local device.