Why is National Angela Day on August 18?

Every established name day for Angela comes from a saint's feast, and the seven European dates fall in January, March, September, November and December. No source documents a reason for August 18.

Is it the same as the Angela name day in Europe?

No. The European name days are a separate and older tradition, with January 27 the most widely shared date because it is the feast of Saint Angela Merici.

What does the name Angela mean?

It is the Latin feminine of angelus, from the Greek angelos, which meant messenger or one that announces before it came to mean an angel.

National Angela Day

Next celebratedWednesday, August 18, 2027

Europe's seven days for Angela all come from saints, among them Angela Merici, who in 1535 gathered 28 women at Brescia into the first institute for educating girls. August 18, the American date, has no author at all.

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 DATEAugust 18

OBSERVED INInternationally

CATEGORYNames

ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY

Not documented

FIRST OBSERVED

Not documented

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A day that arrived through use, not designation.

No founder, founding organisation or establishing record has been identified for National Angela Day, and no source documents why August 18 was chosen. The day circulates informally, marked by regional newsrooms and by people who carry the name.

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

INTRO

Scattered across seven European dates that skip August entirely

In Europe the name Angela already has seven days of its own on the calendar. They are spread across seven countries, and every one of them traces back to a saint. None is in August, which is where National Angela Day sits.

That gap is the whole shape of the day. The European dates were handed out by a machine with reasons behind it, feast by feast, saint by saint. August 18 was handed out by somebody nobody can name.

It gets marked anyway. Birmingham Live and WalesOnline both posted about it on the same morning in August 2025. One of them told readers to celebrate the Angelas, Angies and Anges in their lives.

ORIGINS

Angela Day history

INTRODUCTION

In 1535, in the northern Italian city of Brescia, a woman named Angela Merici called together a company of women. There were 28 of them, and they consecrated themselves to God by a vow of virginity. Each wrote her name in the Book of the Company.

Then they went home, and that was the radical part. Women of the period had two recognised paths, marriage or the cloister. The members of this company lived on in their own families and met regularly, which was a third.

CHAPTER 01

The order that taught girls

Britannica calls what they built the first institute for women dedicated exclusively to the education of girls. Merici drew up its rule in 1536. Her companions elected her superior the year after.

She had five years left. In them she dictated her rule and her counsels to a secretary named Gabriele Cozzano. She died at Brescia in 1540.

CHAPTER 02

Ursulines cross an ocean

The order outlived her by a long way. In 1639 Marie Guyard founded an Ursuline house at Quebec. It was the first congregation of women to be established in North America.

The Ursulines opened a school in New Orleans in 1727. It is still running. It is also the oldest continuously operating school for girls in the United States.

CHAPTER 03

A date the calendar never issued

January 27, the day Merici died, became her feast. The name day travelled with it, which is how a European date for a name gets made: a saint's date, kept by the church, then inherited by everyone who shares the name.

August 18 came from somewhere else. No proclamation, resolution or registry entry has surfaced for National Angela Day, and nothing on record explains the date. What the record does hold is people marking it regardless.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Angela of Foligno is born

She was born at Foligno in Umbria on January 4, the date her feast would later keep.

The Company of Saint Ursula

Angela Merici and 28 companions consecrated themselves at Brescia on November 25.

Ursulines reach Quebec

Marie Guyard founded the Ursuline house there, the first congregation of women established in North America.

A girls' school in New Orleans

Ursuline Academy opened its doors and is now the oldest continuously operating school for girls in the United States.

Merici is canonized

The canonization came on May 24, more than two and a half centuries after her death.

Foligno is canonized

Pope Francis canonized her on October 9 by equipollent canonization.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Angela Day

REGISTRY

Gone from America's top 200 by the 2010s.

By the 2010s Angela had dropped out of the 200 most-given girls' names in the United States, a list Izabella made that decade with 16,050 births. So the day now marks a name American parents have largely stopped giving.

CUSTOM

In Italy a name day works like a second birthday

The Italian onomastico is marked much as a birthday is, with homemade or shop-bought pastries and un pensierino, a small gift. It survives more strongly in central and southern Italy, and only people whose names belong to recognised saints have one at all.

MEANING

The name started out as a job description

Angela is the Latin feminine of angelus, which came from the Greek angelos, literally "messenger, envoy, one that announces." The New Testament applied it to mean divine messenger, but the word began as a description of what someone was sent to do.

GOOD TO KNOW

National Angela Day Around the World

Austria

three dates, January 4, January 27 and November 2, more than any other country

Italy

January 27, the date it shares with Germany

Greece

November 8, the day the Orthodox church keeps the feast of the archangels

Slovakia

March 11, the only one of the seven dates falling between January and September

Estonia

September 6, the first of the autumn dates

Sweden

December 7, the last of the seven

BY THE NUMBERS

National Angela Day by the Numbers

661,633: US girls named Angela since 1926
32nd: Angela's 100-year US ranking
7th: Angela's US rank in the 1970s
225,262: US girls named Angela in the 1970s
9th: Angela's Philippine rank in 2021

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Angela Day

Find the name day an Angela would keep abroad

Look up which of the European dates applies where her family comes from. The published list gives a date for every country that keeps one.

BRING

Bring pastries and something small

A houseplant or a bunch of flowers is the right scale, with something baked alongside it. Keep it to a token rather than a birthday-sized present.

READ

Read up on the Brescia teaching order

The Ursulines began with a group of women who refused to choose between marriage and a convent. Their story is the best thing attached to the name.

INCLUDE

Include the Angies and the Anges

Birmingham Live's post pointedly widened the day to the short forms. Anyone who answers to one of them counts.

INTRODUCE

Introduce her to the other Angelas in the calendar

Angela of Foligno was known in her own lifetime as Magistra Theologorum, Teacher of Theologians. Her account of her inner life, dictated to her confessor, became the Book of Blessed Angela.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Angela Day?

1 / 8

What does the Greek word angelos literally mean?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance with no legal standing, and USAGov lists twelve federal holidays that do not include it, so it is a normal working day.

COLOPHON

Sources

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

16sources

10primary records

5independently dated

Primary records

U.S. Social Security Administration2025

Top Names Over the Last 100 Years

The 100 most-given American names for births from 1926 to 2025, with counts.