Is it pronounced Cah-lin or Coh-lin?

Both are in genuine use and neither is a mistake. Colin Powell described being Cah-lin to his family and Coh-lin to his friends for his entire life.

Is National Colin Day a public holiday?

No. It is an unofficial observance with no legal standing anywhere that could be found, so it is a normal working day.

Who created National Colin Day?

The day is listed on January 29 across name-day sites and is marked in social posts on that date. No founder, organization or reason for the date appears in any record located.

National Colin Day

Next celebratedFriday, January 29, 2027

Colin Powell was Cah-lin at home until a pilot named Colin Kelly died holding a burning bomber level in 1941 and every boy on his street started saying it the American way. January 29 takes both pronunciations.

See how to celebrate

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Last updated September 6, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEJanuary 29

OBSERVED INInternationally

CATEGORYNames

ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY

Not documented

FIRST OBSERVED

Not documented

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

Circulated into existence by listings and posts.

No founder, establishing act, or formal record has been identified for National Colin Day. It circulates through name-day listings and through posts from individuals and regional news brands rather than through any organization.

+ Know the story? Submit a founder Help us complete this holiday

INTRO

Traced to a whelp in one language and to Nicholas in another

National Colin Day honors a name that its own reference works decline to treat as one name. Alexander Macbain's dictionary of Gaelic records the Cailean line, then states that its relation to English and Continental Colin is doubtful. That is a scholar declining to merge two lines that happened to end up spelled alike.

In 2025, seventeen boys in England and Wales were named Colin. Three more national registers tell three different stories about the same six letters.

Almost everything settled about Colin belongs to the name rather than to the observance. The day has no founder and no paperwork, which leaves the name to carry it.

ORIGINS

Colin Day history

INTRODUCTION

In 1522 John Skelton went after Cardinal Wolsey, and he did it through a plain-spoken countryman called Colin Clout, who introduces himself in the poem: "I, Colin Clout, / As I go about, / And wandering as I walk, / I hear the people talk."

The choice of name was the argument. Colin stood for the ordinary man. Edmund Spenser later borrowed the same figure as his own poetic mask, publishing The Shepheardes Calender under the pseudonym Immerito and returning to the character in Colin Clouts Come Home Againe in 1595.

CHAPTER 01

One spelling, two families

The Colin those poets used was not a name in its own right. The Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources keeps no entry for Colin at all, filing the medieval forms under Nicholas, from the Greek words for victory and people.

The other Colin has a different pedigree. It anglicizes the Scottish Gaelic Cailean, and the word underneath that is cuilen, which the Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language glosses as pup, whelp, cub, kitten.

CHAPTER 02

Cah-lin and Coh-lin

Captain Colin P. Kelly Jr. held a burning bomber level so his crew could jump, then died when it exploded in mid-air. That was in December 1941. His first name reached the American public as Coh-lin.

Colin Powell had been Cah-lin at home, the British pronunciation Jamaicans used. "Colin Kelly's name was on every boy's lips, and so, to my friends, I became Coh-lin of Kelly Street," he wrote in his memoir. "To my family, I remain Cah-lin to this day."

CHAPTER 03

Where the day fits

National Colin Day inherits all of this and records none of it. No founder, establishing act or organization has been identified for the observance itself. It moves on name-day listings and on posts from people who happen to know a Colin.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why National Colin Day Matters

RECORDS

The biography of a name, filed by four national statistics agencies.

The Office for National Statistics, the US Social Security Administration, National Records of Scotland and France's INSEE all release name counts that anyone can download for free. Colin is one of the names where that public paperwork, rather than a famous bearer, is the whole story.

SCALE

It never reached the American century list

The Social Security Administration ranks the most popular names of the last hundred years, and Colin is not on it. The name had a genuine American decade without ever becoming an American staple.

EVIDENCE

The registers stop counting the smallest names

The Office for National Statistics redacts any name given to two or fewer boys in a year, so its published counts are real figures rather than floors. That threshold is the line at which a name stops appearing in the public statistics at all.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Colin Day by the Numbers

15th: Peak rank, England and Wales, 1944
108th: Best US decade rank, the 2000s
328: Boys named Colin in France, 1999
6: Boys named Colin in Scotland, 2025

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about National Colin Day

The earliest English Colin on record is a wife

The medieval names dictionary witnesses the English form Colyn in 1379 inside the byname Colynwyf, meaning Colin's wife. She is in the record; he is not.

In French, colin is dinner

The CNRTL lexicon defines colin as a sea fish whose exact name is merlu, or hake. It traces the word to Dutch koolvis, literally coal-fish, and not to the personal name.

America's most famous Colin was named off a shipping ticket

Asked whether he had been named for an illustrious ancestor, Colin Powell said his father read the name off a shipping ticket the day he was born.

It was once close to a Campbell family possession

Macbain records Cailean as a name once more or less peculiar to the Campbells, whose chief is styled M'Cailein in Gaelic.

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe National Colin Day

Look the name up in a national register

The ONS publishes every boy's name given in England and Wales down to a count of three. Search the latest spreadsheet for Colin and see where it now sits.

ASK

Ask the Colin in your life how he says it

Cah-lin and Coh-lin are both in ordinary use, and neither one is wrong. A name day is a low-stakes moment to ask which version someone actually answers to.

READ

Read the poem that made Colin a spokesman

Skelton put the name to work as the voice of the common man. The Poetry Foundation lays out where the poem sits in his work.

COMPARE

Compare the name across two countries

The ONS ranks names in England and Wales back to 1904, and the Social Security Administration publishes American tables by decade. Set the two beside each other and Colin peaks decades apart.

CHECK

Check what the name actually means

The Gaelic root is documented in the Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language, and the gloss is blunter than most name sites suggest. Read the entry before repeating a meaning you found on a listing page.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Colin Day?

1 / 8

The Scottish Gaelic name Cailean sits on an older word. What does that word mean?

Answer

It depends which Colin. The Gaelic Cailean rests on a word glossed as pup, whelp or cub, while the English Colin is a medieval pet form of Nicholas, and it is Nicholas, not Colin, that means victory of the people.

COLOPHON

Sources

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

16sources

11primary records

8independently dated

Primary records

Office for National Statistics2025

Baby names for boys in England and Wales, 2025

Every boy's name registered in England and Wales, down to a count of three.