Holiday Calendar

National Amanda Day

Next celebratedSaturday, September 26, 2026

Amanda was Latin for meant to be loved centuries before anyone used it as a name, and the first one was a stage wife of strict virtue, married young and forsaken. September 26 belongs to everyone the name has landed on since.

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Last updated September 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATESeptember 26
OBSERVED INInternationally
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

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

A calendar entry that arrived without a paper trail.

No founder, organization or establishing record has been identified for National Amanda Day, and a full-text search of the US Federal Register returns nothing under the name. It survives through calendar listings, commercial stock artwork made for the date, and social posts.

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

Waiting nearly three centuries between the stage and the birth register

National Amanda Day celebrates a name that spent its first long stretch as a piece of writing. Colley Cibber wrote a wife called Amanda into a comedy staged in 1696, describing her in his cast list as a woman of strict virtue, married young and forsaken by her husband. The play existed at all because his earnings as an actor were inadequate.

Then the name waited. Amanda did not reach its American peak until 1980, nearly three centuries after Cibber put it on a stage. That year 35,811 girls were registered with it, the highest count the Social Security Administration records for the name.

The retreat was as fast as the climb. The most recent count on the same register is 601 newborn Amandas.

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ORIGINS

Amanda Day history

INTRODUCTION

Reference books cannot agree on how old the name is. The standard account, set out by Behind the Name, is that Amanda went unused through the Middle Ages and was recreated by authors and poets working straight from Latin.

The scholars who catalog actual medieval records push back. The Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources says plainly that Withycombe was wrong to call the name a 17th-century invention. Its own entry lists the variant Amandine, recorded in the Walloon community in England in 1591.

CHAPTER 01

The stage kept borrowing her

Cibber's wronged wife did not stay in one play. John Vanbrugh wrote a sequel the same season, The Relapse: or, Virtue in Danger, and carried Amanda into it alongside Loveless and the fop who becomes Lord Foppington.

Tennessee Williams reached for the name much later. The Glass Menagerie, produced in 1944, gave it to a St. Louis mother clinging to the myth of her years as a Southern belle. On the American register that year, Amanda sat 467th.

CHAPTER 02

Fifteen years to the peak

Nothing in the earlier record predicts what happened next. The turn begins in 1965. Amanda sat 201st among American girls that year, and the climb from there was close to vertical.

The name entered the American top ten in 1976 and settled in. The exit from the wider list took much longer. Its last appearance in the American top hundred came in 2006, at the very bottom of it.

CHAPTER 03

A day that arrived without a signature

The name has a paper trail. The day does not. A full-text search of the US Federal Register turns up nothing at all under National Amanda Day.

What does exist is commercial and personal. A stock library sells a vector illustration titled for September 26, and at least one Amanda has tagged her own birthday post with the hashtag.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Amandine turns up in England

The Dictionary of Medieval Names records the variant in the Walloon community in England, and again two years later.

Cibber puts Amanda on stage

Love's Last Shift introduces the characters Amanda and Loveless, who are carried straight into Vanbrugh's sequel.

Amanda Wingfield reaches the stage

Tennessee Williams gives the name to the mother at the center of The Glass Menagerie.

The name enters the top ten

Amanda reaches tenth place among American girls' names, the start of its run inside the top ten.

Amanda peaks at second

The name reaches second place on the American register, one place short of the top.

Last year in the top hundred

Amanda appears in the American top hundred for the final time, landing at exactly 100th.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Amanda Day

LITERATURE

A form that dominated the English stage for nearly a century.

Cibber's Love's Last Shift is generally considered the first sentimental comedy. The form it launched went on to dominate the English stage for nearly a century.

LANGUAGE

A Latin word before it was a name

The Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources glosses the Latin amanda as 'meant to be loved'. Behind the Name renders the same root as 'lovable, worthy of love'.

CALENDARS

Where unofficial national days come from

NPR's Planet Money found Congress running its own holiday factory, and in the 1985-86 session one law in three established something like National Bowling Week. When the House stopped, the submissions moved to Chase's Calendar of Events, a 752-page book that takes them from the public.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Amanda Day by the Numbers

2.011%
US girls named Amanda, 1980
0.034%
US girls named Amanda, 2025
20 years
Consecutive years in US top 10 names
14 years
Consecutive years in US top 5 names
496th
Amanda's lowest US rank, set 1937

MYTH VS FACT

Common Misconceptions

The myth

The name first appears in the birth registers of Warwickshire in 1212.

The truth

England had no birth registers in 1212. The National Archives dates the start of parish registers, the first systematic record of baptisms, marriages and burials, to 1538.

The myth

The 1980s television Amandas made the name popular.

The truth

The order of events runs the other way. Amanda was already past its high point on the American register when Dynasty premiered on ABC, on January 12, 1981.

GOOD TO KNOW

National Amanda Day Around the World

Finland

Amanda has an official name day on 26 October, listed by the University of Helsinki Almanac Office in the Finnish, Finnish-Swedish and Sámi calendars

Brazil

the country ran its own Amanda wave a decade after the American one, with the 2010 census counting 209,251 people named Amanda born in the 1990s against 1,167 born in the 1960s

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Amanda Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Look up when your own name peaked

The Social Security Administration publishes a year-by-year rank for any American name going back to 1900. Run yours through the popularity tool and find out which decade you sound like.

READ

Read the 1696 comedy Amanda came from

Love's Last Shift sits in the Routledge anthology of Restoration drama next to the sequel that borrowed its characters. The plot turns on a disguise and a confession the morning after.

TOAST

Toast the Amandas in your life

The day works best as an excuse to name names. Message every Amanda in your contacts and see how many of them turn out to share a birth decade.

MARK

Mark the Finnish name day as well

Amanda's Finnish namesakes get their turn a month later. Put it in the calendar and give the Amandas you know a second round.

ASK

Ask an Amanda who chose the name

Naming reasons rarely survive a generation intact. Ask the Amandas you know who picked it and why, then write the answer down before it disappears.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Amanda Day?

1 / 8

What does the Latin word amanda mean?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance with no legal recognition found, so schools, banks and offices stay open.

COLOPHON

Sources

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

15sources
7primary records
7independently dated
Primary records
US Social Security Administration2025
Popularity of the name Amanda
Year-by-year US rank and birth counts for the name, 1900 to 2025.
View source
University of Helsinki Almanac Office
Name day search
Finland's official name-day lists, which place Amanda on 26 October.
View source
Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística2010
Census name frequency, AMANDA
Brazil's 2010 census count of people named Amanda by decade of birth.
View source
Federal Register
Full-text search for National Amanda Day
The US federal document archive, searchable by exact phrase.
View source
The National Archives
Medieval and early modern family history
Explains that England recorded no births or baptisms before parish registers began in 1538.
View source
Shutterstock
National Amanda Day on September 26, stock vector
Royalty-free artwork drawn for the observance and titled with its date.
View source
Instagram2022-12
National Amanda Day birthday post
A public post carrying the day's hashtag alongside a personal birthday.
View source
Additional coverage
Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources2023
Amanda
Scholarly entry giving the Latin sense and disputing the 17th-century invention story.
View source
Behind the Name
Meaning, origin and history of the name Amanda
The standard reference account of the name, its meaning and its related forms.
View source
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Colley Cibber
Biography of the playwright, covering Love's Last Shift and Vanbrugh's sequel.
View source
Routledge Textbooks
The Relapse, from The Routledge Anthology of Restoration and 18th Century Drama
Notes that Cibber's 1696 comedy introduced Amanda and Loveless.
View source
Encyclopaedia Britannica2026-08
The Glass Menagerie
Summary of the 1944 play and its Southern-belle mother, Amanda Wingfield.
View source
Wikipedia
Love's Last Shift
The play's cast list and the plot of the trick Amanda plays on her husband.
View source
NPR2017-04
It's National Garlic Day. Who Is Making Up These Weird Holidays?
Planet Money on where unofficial national days come from, and who submits them.
View source
HISTORY2025-05
Dynasty premieres on ABC
Dates the prime-time soap's first broadcast to January 12, 1981.
View source
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