Holiday Calendar

National Taylor Day

Next celebratedTuesday, April 6, 2027

Taylor was the 17th most common surname in the 2010 US census. April 6 belongs to the first name instead, one American parents have given to both girls and boys since the 1950s.

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Last updated September 4, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEApril 6
OBSERVED INInternationally
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
Not documented
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

The earliest verified observance is a 2025 gathering.

The earliest dated observance located for National Taylor Day is a public gathering held on 6 April 2025. No founder, establishment record or registrar entry has been identified, and the day otherwise circulates on social media and aggregator listings.

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

England and Wales never agreed it was a girl's name

Two national birth registries do not agree about what sex the name Taylor is. American parents made it a girls' name. Parents in England and Wales did not, and Behind the Name records the exception: the name went majority-female across the English-speaking world, with England and Wales left out of the trend.

National Taylor Day falls on April 6, and it belongs to a name that has never settled on one side of that divide.

In April 2025 a converted schoolhouse in Taylor, Texas, put out a call. Old Taylor High invited every Taylor within reach to turn up that Sunday, meet other Taylors, and have a picture taken at the building. A town called Taylor, hosting a day for people called Taylor.

Nobody knows who started the day. The name is far better documented, and its American record holds a reversal that most naming stories do not.

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ORIGINS

Taylor Day history

INTRODUCTION

Before Taylor was a name that people were given, it was a job that people did. The word came into English from Norman French, and it arrived in a language that already had a perfectly good word of its own for the trade.

CHAPTER 01

A borrowed word beat the English one

The Online Etymology Dictionary dates tailor in English to the late 13th century, from Old French tailleor, meaning literally a cutter. The surname is older in the written record than the ordinary noun, first appearing in the late 12th century.

English had not been waiting for the loan. Its own term for the same tradesman was seamere, built on seam, and the borrowed word pushed it out. Follow the chain back through Medieval Latin taliare and it stops at Latin talea, of which the etymologist de Vaan wrote that there is no viable etymology unless it derives from the word for ankle.

CHAPTER 02

From a job to a surname to a first name

The occupational surname travelled well. The 2010 census put Taylor 17th among American surnames. It counted 751,209 people carrying it.

That surname is what supplied the first name, and as a first name it belonged to boys alone for a long time. Taylor appears in the very first American federal name file, covering births in 1880, on the boys' side. Behind the Name suggests the later feminine use may have been influenced by the author Taylor Caldwell.

CHAPTER 03

The year the name changed hands

Girls named Taylor do not show up in the American records at all until 1951. For thirty-nine straight years after that, boys named Taylor still outnumbered them. In 1990 it stopped.

That year the girls' count reached 7,262. The boys' count was 6,579 in the Social Security Administration's national files, and the boys' side has not led in any year since.

CHAPTER 04

The day itself has no paper trail

None of that explains the date. No founder, no announcement, no registry entry and no proclamation has been found for National Taylor Day, and no source gives a reason for the sixth of April. What can be documented is that people observe it.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Taylor Day

Record

Swift's own name, Taylor, has continued to decline in popularity.

Sophie Kihm, editor-in-chief of Nameberry, told TODAY that the name Taylor "has continued to decline in popularity." Namerology founder Laura Wattenberg, in the same piece, noted that songs move names hardest when a fashion-forward name sits at the romantic centre of one.

Timing

The peak arrived thirteen years before the debut album

The girls' name reached its highest American birth count in 1993, and Taylor Swift, born on December 13, 1989 according to Britannica, released her self-titled debut in 2006. By the year of that album the girls' name had already fallen to 8,566 births and to 23rd place.

Evidence

Measured against matched names, nothing detectable happened

Comparing the girls' name after 2006 with five names chosen for having tracked it beforehand, Cheyenne, Sierra, Shelby, Haley and Jordan, its decline runs slightly slower than theirs and well inside the spread of the group. The same method catches real media effects easily, so the honest reading is no detectable change rather than no effect at all, and a small effect is not ruled out.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Taylor Day by the Numbers

330,145
US girls named Taylor, 1880 to 2025
113,541
US boys named Taylor, 1880 to 2025
6th
Best US girls' rank since 1880
65th
Best England and Wales boys' rank, 1996 to 2016
21,270
US girls named Taylor in 1993, its peak year

TIMELINE

Timeline

Tailor recorded as a surname

The word appears in the English written record as a surname in the late 12th century, ahead of its use as an ordinary noun.

First American name file

Taylor is present in the earliest year of the federal birth-name data, on the boys' side, with 37 births.

Girls appear in the records

Taylor is recorded for American girls for the first time, with seven births.

Girls' name reaches the top 1000

The girls' name enters the American top 1000 for the first time, on 149 births.

Girls pass boys

American girls given the name outnumber boys for the first time, and the boys' side never leads again.

A gathering in Taylor, Texas

Old Taylor High invites everyone named Taylor to a public April 6 event at a converted 1923 schoolhouse.

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about National Taylor Day

Its best rank came in a worse year

Both series peaked in births a year before they peaked in rank. The girls' name recorded more births in 1993 than in any other year on record, yet reached its best position, sixth, in 1994. The boys' name did the same thing, with its biggest year in 1992 and its best rank, 51st, in 1993.

Four spellings, one table, one year

The England and Wales girls' list for 2000 prints Taylor, Tyler, Tayler and Taylah as four separate entries, with 456, 157, 40 and 8 births. Tyler runs as a girls' name there as well as a boys' one.

The boys' name has never missed a year

Taylor appears in every one of the 146 annual American name files from 1880 through 2025 as a boys' name, without a single gap.

The girls' name kept disappearing

After first appearing in 1951, the girls' name fell below the five-birth reporting floor in 1952, 1953, 1955, 1959 and 1965. Its unbroken run only begins in 1966.

The two registries even count ties differently

American files number every entry in turn, so tied names get consecutive ranks; the England and Wales tables give tied names the same rank. For the spelling Tayler in 2000 it matters: the England and Wales table prints 637th where the American rule would give 644th.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Taylor Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Gather the Taylors you know

Old Taylor High's 2025 event worked on the simplest possible premise, which was getting people who share the name into the same room. Invite the Taylors in your contacts to one table and see how many spellings turn up.

LOOK

Look up your own year

The Social Security Administration publishes a file for every birth year from 1880 onward. Find the year a Taylor you know was born and see where the name sat that year, on the side of the list that applies.

SETTLE

Settle the spelling argument

Taylor, Tayler and Taylah are genuinely different entries in the official statistics, not variations of one. Ask the Taylors in your life which one they were given and how often it gets typed wrong.

TRACE

Trace the trade behind the name

The name started as a job title for someone who cut cloth. Visit a tailor, get something altered properly, or just learn what the work involves beyond a sewing machine.

POST

Post it under the hashtag the day already uses

The Old Taylor High invitation went out tagged NationalTaylorDay, which is how the date circulates each April. Add the Taylor in your life to it, or claim the tag yourself if the name is yours.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Taylor Day?

1 / 8

What job did the name Taylor originally describe?

Answer

No. It is an informal observance with no legal standing, and no proclamation, law or government recognition has been found for it.

COLOPHON

Sources

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

10sources
4primary records
7independently dated
Primary records
U.S. Social Security Administration2026
National data on the relative frequency of given names in the population of U.S. births
Every given name recorded for at least five US births per sex per year since 1880.
View source
Office for National Statistics2017
Baby names in England and Wales, 1996 to 2016
Rank and count for every baby name registered in England and Wales, both sexes, year by year.
View source
U.S. Census Bureau2016
Frequently Occurring Surnames from the 2010 Census
Rank and count for 162,253 American surnames reported at least 100 times in 2010.
View source
Old Taylor High2025
Calling all Taylors: National Taylor Day is happening this Sunday, April 6th
The venue's own invitation to an April 6 gathering for people named Taylor.
View source
Additional coverage
Online Etymology Dictionary
Tailor: Etymology, Origin and Meaning
First attestations of tailor in English, the Old English word seamere, and the Latin dead end.
View source
Behind the Name
Meaning, origin and history of the name Taylor
The Norman French etymology and the England and Wales exception to the name's shift toward girls.
View source
Behind the Name
Meaning, origin and history of the surname Taylor
The occupational surname and the suggested influence of the author Taylor Caldwell.
View source
TODAY2025
59 Baby Names Inspired by Taylor Swift
Nameberry and Namerology experts on which names a song moves and which it does not.
View source
Encyclopaedia Britannica2026
Taylor Swift
Reference biography giving the birth date and the 2006 self-titled debut album.
View source
Mandatory2025
National Taylor Swift Day Trends but Fans Cannot Decide When It Is
Report that the fan observance has no official recognition and no agreed date.
View source
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