Who started National Eric Day and why is it on November 26?

The day circulates on November 26 and has been marked by a Wisconsin event and by UK newsrooms, with the earliest dated trace found being a post from November 26, 2022. No founder, announcement or establishing document has been located, and no source explains why that date was chosen.

Is National Eric Day the same as Saint Erik's day?

No. Saint Erik's feast and Erik's name day across Sweden, France, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary and Norway all fall on May 18. No source supports the popular claim that the November date honours him.

What does the name Eric mean?

That depends on which reference work you open. Behind the Name gives "ever ruler", the Online Etymology Dictionary gives "honored ruler", and Sweden's Isof reads the first element as one or alone and favours "the one mighty above others".

National Eric Day

Next celebratedThursday, November 26, 2026

The first Eric Fest, at a Wisconsin distillery in 2025, could not decide what to do about the Eriks and the Aricks. Its listing promised to settle that later, 'most likely by an Eric committee.' November 26 is the day it marked.

See how to celebrate

Countdown to the day

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

YEARLY DATENovember 26

OBSERVED INInternationally

CATEGORYNames

ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY

Not documented

FIRST OBSERVED

Not documented

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

The Erik IX story is unsupported.

No documented founder or formal establishment record has been identified for National Eric Day. The widely repeated claim that it honors Erik IX of Sweden is unsupported, and his feast day falls on 18 May.

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

INTRO

Sweden counts the spellings as one name, America counts three

The first Eric Fest, a National Eric Day party thrown at a distillery in Cottage Grove, Wisconsin, in 2025, walked into an argument in its own event listing. There were Eriks out there, the listing conceded, and Aricks. How to handle those alternative spellings would be settled later, "most likely by an Eric committee."

The committee never had to meet. Two national record keepers had already ruled on the question, and they ruled in opposite directions.

The US Social Security Administration says so plainly in its own published data rules: "Different spellings of similar names are not combined." Every spelling gets its own line and its own rank. Sweden's answer runs the other way.

ORIGINS

Eric Day history

INTRODUCTION

The oldest thing anyone can say for certain about the name is how it was written down. Sweden's national language institute records the earliest attestation as a runic spelling, airikr. What it meant is where the agreement ends.

CHAPTER 01

Three books, three different rulers

Three standard reference works take the same Old Norse name, Eiríkr, and pull it apart three different ways. Behind the Name splits it into ei, "ever, always," and ríkr, "ruler, king," and glosses the whole thing "ever ruler". The Online Etymology Dictionary reaches for a different root entirely, the Proto-Germanic aiza, "honor," and arrives at "honored ruler".

Isof takes a third path. Its first element is aina, "one, alone," and the reading it says has won the widest recent acceptance is "the one mighty above others." An eternal ruler, an honored ruler, a singular one: the books cannot agree on what kind of power the name is claiming.

CHAPTER 02

The king behind the eighteenth of May

Erik IX of Sweden became the country's patron saint. His reign began in 1150. It ended, the legend says, in the church at Old Uppsala, when a Danish prince invaded and disputed his right to the throne.

He was also, the New Catholic Encyclopedia records, never formally canonized. The feast went ahead regardless, on 18 May, and Sweden kept him as its patron.

CHAPTER 03

England let the name lapse, then took it back

Danish settlers carried the name into England during the Anglo-Saxon period, and England more or less lost interest. It was not popular through the Middle Ages. Part of what brought it back was a children's novel, Frederic William Farrar's Eric, or Little by Little, published in 1858.

CHAPTER 04

Where the trail on the day itself goes cold

None of that explains 26 November. No founder, no announcement and no establishing document has been located for National Eric Day, in any country.

The earliest dated trace found is a post from November 2022. A year later WalesOnline was telling readers to appreciate the Erics in their lives. The name did all the talking, and it turned out to be enough.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Eric Day

COUNTING

A name count is a filing rule, not a headcount.

Sweden's Isof adds spelling variants together by policy, so Carl and Karl arrive in its statistics as one and the same name. A population figure for a name is therefore not a headcount so much as a filing decision, and the decision changes at the border.

CUSTODY

Sweden nearly lost the series that makes this comparable

Statistics Sweden had published detailed personal-name statistics since 1998, and in 2023 it gave up compiling the version that merges spellings. The Tax Agency's baby-name figures do not merge them, so Isof took the series over to keep the numbers comparable year to year.

REVISION

The government's own entry on Erik has aged

Isof's page on the name still carries a line from a 2004 lexicon calling Erik the most common man's name in Sweden, and Isof flags on that same page that parts of the text are now out of date. Its own statistics release for 2023 reports that the most common male given name is Mikael.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Eric Day by the Numbers

211,481: US boys named Eric, 1970s
63 / 179 / 183: Eric, Erik, Erick: US ranks, 2000s
Outside top 200: Eric's US standing, 2020-2025

TIMELINE

Timeline

Norse wood felled in Newfoundland

Erik the Red's son Leif is the man the Vinland sagas credit with reaching North America, and this wood gives the only secure date for Europeans in the Americas before Columbus.

Erik of Sweden is killed

The king who becomes Sweden's patron dies around this year, and 18 May becomes his feast.

A novel helps revive the name

Frederic William Farrar publishes Eric, or Little by Little, credited with helping bring the name back into English use.

L'Anse aux Meadows is found

Archaeologists locate the Newfoundland site whose Norse remains would later be dated to the eleventh century.

Congress authorises Leif Erikson Day

A joint resolution approved that September lets the President proclaim October 9 each year as Leif Erikson Day.

The day's earliest dated trace

A post published on 26 November is the earliest dated record of National Eric Day located in this research.

GOOD TO KNOW

National Eric Day Around the World

Sweden

Erik's name day is 18 May in both the standard Swedish and the Finland-Swedish almanac, after Erik den helige. The date was long called Eriksdagen or Ersmässan and worked as a farming deadline: if the rye had come into ear by then, there would be bread by Olsmässan.

Denmark, Norway, Estonia and Hungary

Four more national calendars put Erik on 18 May, holding the Swedish date intact well beyond Sweden.

France

Éric keeps 18 May too, carrying a Swedish king's feast day into a calendar far outside the countries where his cult was observed.

Czechia and Slovakia

The only two calendars checked that break ranks, placing Erik on 26 October and 2 February. Neither they nor any of the others land on 26 November.

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about National Eric Day

Two of the best known Erics answered to other names

Harry Houdini was born Erik Weisz in Budapest in 1874. George Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair, and took his pen surname from a river in East Anglia.

A cosmic ray spike dated the Norse camp to one year

A surge in atmospheric radiocarbon in AD 993 shows up in tree rings worldwide. Counting outward from that ring in wood from L'Anse aux Meadows put the felling year at 1021.

The camp in Newfoundland had a forge

UNESCO records eight timber-framed turf structures at the site: three dwellings, one forge and four workshops, built in the style of Norse Greenland and Iceland.

The American name record has a hole in it before 1937

The Social Security Administration warns that many people born before 1937 never applied for a card, so their names are missing from its data altogether.

The Leif Erikson story was written down centuries later

Britannica notes that the accounts of his life are 13th and 14th century Icelandic texts, and that he may not have been the first European to sight the coast.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Eric Day

Invite every spelling to the table

Ask the Erics, the Eriks and the Ericks in your life over on the same evening. Settling who qualifies is half the entertainment.

LOOK

Look up the name in the federal record

The Social Security Administration publishes decade by decade rankings of US baby names. Find the decade a particular Eric was born in and see where the name sat.

ADD

Add 18 May to the calendar as well

Sweden's almanac entry for Erik puts the name day in May rather than November. An Eric with Swedish family may already be marking a different date entirely.

READ

Read the study that dated the Norse year

The 2021 Nature paper on Newfoundland walks through how three pieces of wood were pinned to a single year. It is short, and the method is the interesting part.

PUT

Put the meaning to a vote

The reference books have never agreed on what the first half of the name claims. Let the Erics in the room pick a side and argue it.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Eric Day?

1 / 8

Sweden's Isof reads the first half of Eiríkr differently from the English dictionaries. What meaning does it give it?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance with no legal standing located, unlike Leif Erikson Day on October 9, which a 1964 joint resolution authorises the President to proclaim.

COLOPHON

Sources

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

20sources

11primary records

9independently dated

Primary records

US Social Security Administration2026-03

Background information for popular names

The agency's own data rules, including its refusal to combine spellings.