July was not always July. It was originally Quintilis—Latin for “the fifth month,” because in the old Roman calendar (which began in March), it was indeed the fifth. The name made sense. It was logical. It was transparent.
Then Julius Caesar came along. In 44 BCE, after his assassination, the Roman Senate renamed Quintilis to Julius in his honor—the first month to be named after a person rather than a god or a number. Caesar had reformed the calendar itself (giving us the Julian calendar, which fixed the drift that had plagued the Roman year), so the honor was arguably deserved. But it broke the system. A numbered month became a person’s name, and the pattern shattered.
This was the original sin of the modern calendar. Once a month could be named after a person, all months became available for renaming. Augustus would follow, claiming the next month (Sextilis → August). And the numbering of the remaining months—September (seven), October (eight), November (nine), December (ten)—became permanently wrong, offset by two from their actual positions.
English learners today still pay the price for a political decision made by the Roman Senate in 44 BCE. They learn July as an opaque word, unconnected to the number seven, with no hint that it was once a perfectly sensible numbered month. The calendar was logical once. We can make it logical again.
Our Recommendation: Month Seven. Restore the number. Retire the emperor.