Who created National Amy Day?

The day is kept on January 28 by individuals and by at least one news brand, and it circulates through social posts and holiday listings. No founder, organization, or founding year is on record for it, so a year quoted in a listing is not documented.

What does the name Amy mean?

Beloved. It comes from the Old French Amee, the feminine past participle of the verb amer, to love, which goes back to the Latin amare.

Was Amy really America's second most popular girls' name in the 1970s?

Yes, taking the decade as a whole, which is how the Social Security Administration ranks births for the 1970s. Year by year it is different, and Amy reached second place in only four of those ten years.

National Amy Day

Next celebratedThursday, January 28, 2027

For every Amy: a name that grammatically is the Old French word for beloved.

See how to celebrate

Countdown to the day

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Last updated August 18, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEJanuary 28

OBSERVED INInternationally

CATEGORYNames

ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY

Not documented

FIRST OBSERVED

Not documented

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

An old name and an anonymous observance.

No founder, organization, or establishment record for National Amy Day has been identified. Dated posts show the day kept on January 28 and circulating through social platforms and holiday listings, but nothing documents who named it or when.

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INTRO

Second place in a decade Jennifer owned

National Amy Day gives one square of the calendar to everybody who shares a single first name. Amy broke into America's top five girls' names in 1970 and stayed for the rest of the decade. Jennifer took first place in every one of those ten years.

Second was as high as Amy ever got. It held that place for four years running, then slid down and left the top five after 1979. Across the century of records either side of that run, the name never appears in that table again.

The word is far older than any registry. It comes from Old French Amee, the feminine past participle of amer, to love. Amy does not merely suggest beloved; grammatically, it is the word.

ORIGINS

Amy Day history

INTRODUCTION

The oldest Amy on record was not American, and did not spell it that way. The Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources dates its earliest citation to 1340, in a Coventry guild register, where it is written Ame.

The spelling settled slowly after that. Amy itself turns up in a Middle English record of 1431. English parish records of the 1500s were still writing the same name five ways: Ame, Amy, Amye, Amia and Amie.

CHAPTER 01

A name that fell off the American table

For a long stretch, American record-keeping did not find Amy at all. The name is absent from the Social Security Administration's 200-name lists for the 1910s, 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. Four decades of American babies passed with it outside the top 200 entirely.

The climb back was fast. Amy had reached 35th by the 1960s, one decade short of the run that would define it.

CHAPTER 02

Down the other side

Nothing about the peak held. Amy fell in every decade that followed, and by the 2000s it stood at 115th.

The fall did not stop there. The name is absent from the table for the 2020s altogether, which is roughly where it stood before the boom began.

CHAPTER 03

A day at the end of a long line

The onomastic reference Behind the Name, drawing on the Oxford Dictionary of First Names, records that Amy was used in the Middle Ages and revived in the 19th century. It names no book and no bearer as the cause of that revival.

National Amy Day arrives at the end of that line. Nearly seven centuries of paper stand behind the name. Where the day itself came from, the record simply stops.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Amy Day

SCALE

Roughly 5,700 American holidays, and many of them are first names.

The Washington Post's Department of Data catalogued roughly 5,700 nonreligious holidays observed in America, working from holiday-listing sites and the electronic edition of Chase's Calendar of Events. Of the 153 days that surfaced on their own in search traffic, the paper reported that many celebrated specific personal names.

STANDING

What the word national actually buys

The same analysis scored a day 1.5 points for formal federal recognition by presidential proclamation or Title 36, and 2 points for status as a federal holiday recognized by the Office of Personnel Management. A listing on a holiday site was worth 0.25 points, capped at a single point however many sites carried it.

PRACTICE

It travels by surprise

A blogger marking the day in January 2025 opened by admitting she had not known it existed. A year later the London news brand MyLondon posted about it to its own audience, which puts the observance outside the United States.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Amy Day by the Numbers

268,994: US girls named Amy in the 1970s
581,729: US girls named Jennifer in the 1970s
685,447: US girls named Amy, 1926 to 2025
No. 30: Amy's US rank, 1926 to 2025

TIMELINE

Timeline

Earliest record of the name

A Coventry guild register spells it Ame, the oldest dated citation in the Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources.

The spelling Amy appears

A Middle English record carries the modern spelling for the first time in that dictionary's citation list.

A rare French sighting

The dictionary's single Middle French citation, Aymee, arrives more than two centuries after the English ones begin.

Forty-fourth in England and Wales

Amy ranks 44th among girls' names in the earliest of the ONS ten-yearly snapshots.

Amy Johnson reaches Darwin

She left Croydon on 5 May and landed in Australia on 24 May, the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia.

Three hundred and sixty-sixth

Amy ranks 366th among girls' names registered in England and Wales, in a table more than seven thousand names long.

GOOD TO KNOW

National Amy Day Around the World

England and Wales

the name is missing from the ONS top 100 at the 1934, 1944, 1954, 1964 and 1974 snapshots, returns at seventh in 1994, and is outside the top 100 again in 2024

United States

the American decade rank had fallen to 64th by the 1990s, the same decade the name was reaching its England and Wales high

France

the Dictionary of Medieval Names notes that despite the name's French linguistic origins, it was more popular in England than in France

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Amy Day

Look up your own name in the American records

The Social Security Administration publishes the top five names for each year since 1926. Find the year you were born and see who you were sharing a register with.

COMPARE

Compare how one name travelled in two countries

Set the SSA decade tables beside the ONS ten-yearly snapshots for England and Wales. Both are free to browse, and one name's two records are worth reading side by side.

TRACE

Trace the medieval spellings

The Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources lists every dated record it holds for a name, spelling by spelling. It is the closest thing a first name has to a family tree.

MESSAGE

Message an Amy you have lost touch with

The day works better as an excuse than as an event. Pick one person and say something specific rather than sending a greeting to everyone at once.

READ

Read up on the pilot who flew to Australia solo

The Science Museum's account of Amy Johnson covers the flight and the popular songs written about her afterwards. It is short, and it is a better read than the usual famous-namesake list.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Amy Day?

1 / 8

Which name held first place in every year Amy appeared in the American top five?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance and a normal working day, and a search of the Federal Register for the day's name returns no documents at all.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

18sources

12primary records

6independently dated

Primary records

U.S. Social Security Administration

Top 5 Names in Each of the Last 100 Years

The five most popular US baby names for every year of births from 1926 to 2025.