Holiday Calendar

National Ava Day

Next celebratedThursday, February 11, 2027

Celebrating a name that fame alone never lifted: Ava missed the 1950s top 200 despite Ava Gardner's stardom, then held a top-five place for sixteen straight years half a century later.

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Last updated August 18, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEFebruary 11
OBSERVED INUnited States
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

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

A day that spread before anyone claimed it.

No founder, proclamation, or establishing record for National Ava Day has been identified. It circulates through online calendars and personal social posts rather than through any organizing body.

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

Ava Gardner did not make this name popular

Ava Gardner was one of the biggest movie stars in America through the 1950s. National Ava Day belongs to the name she carried, and the federal birth records tell a stranger story than her fame suggests. Ava does not appear anywhere among the 200 most popular American girls' names of that decade.

By 2006, Ava was one of the five most-given girls' names in the United States. It held a top-five place for sixteen consecutive years, peaking at third.

The name outran the star by half a century. The record behind it runs back a great deal further.

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ORIGINS

Ava Day history

INTRODUCTION

Look up Ava in the standard reference for given names and you find it three times. Behind the Name lists an English Ava, a Persian Ava, and a Germanic Ava, and the three have nothing to do with one another.

The English entry calls it a variant of Eve. The Persian entry gives it as voice or sound. The Germanic entry is the least settled of the three, a short form of names beginning with the element awi, of unknown meaning.

CHAPTER 01

The first Avas in the record

That Germanic entry points at two real people. One is a ninth-century Frankish saint, a Benedictine abbess in what is now Belgium, commemorated on April 29 as a patron of the blind.

The other is stranger. Frau Ava died in 1127 as an enclosed woman living near Göttweig Abbey in Lower Austria. She is the first named female writer in any genre in the German language, and a tower at Klein-Wien still carries her name.

CHAPTER 02

The star who moved nothing

In 1940 her brother-in-law hung her portrait in his Fifth Avenue photography studio window, and MGM noticed. Louis B. Mayer allegedly wired back a verdict that ran through everything she could not do before ending: "She's terrific!"

Gardner became a star. She was nominated for the Best Actress Academy Award for Mogambo, and the American Film Institute later placed her twenty-fifth among the greatest female screen legends.

CHAPTER 03

A day that arrived on its own

The name's American revival is written into the federal birth tables in detail. What is not written anywhere is why it happened, or who decided that February 11 should belong to it.

No founder, proclamation, or filing for National Ava Day has been identified. It reached the calendar through listings and personal messages rather than through any announcement.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Ava Day

LITERATURE

A medieval Ava still has a literary prize in her name.

Two Austrian municipalities, Paudorf and Furth bei Göttweig, established the Frau Ava Literaturpreis in 2001. It has gone biennially since 2003 to published women writing on spiritual, religious, or political themes for young readers.

CINEMA

The name is attached to a run of firsts

Ava DuVernay was the first African-American woman nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Director, for Selma. She was also the first African-American woman to direct a live-action film budgeted at over $100 million.

MEMORY

A fan's collection became a town's museum

The Ava Gardner Museum in Smithfield, North Carolina grew out of a collection a fan began in 1941, after meeting Gardner as a boy. It now draws about 7,000 visitors a year.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Ava Day by the Numbers

16th
Ava's US rank among girls, 2000s
5th
Ava's US rank among girls, 2010s
155,879
US girls named Ava in the 2010s
1,611
Girls named Ava, England and Wales, 2025

GOOD TO KNOW

National Ava Day Around the World

Central and Eastern Europe

Name days are kept most strongly here, in Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Russia and Slovakia. In Latvia and Hungary a name day may be celebrated more festively than a birthday.

United States

The reference record of the name-day tradition lists no such observance in the United States or other mainly English-speaking countries. An American name day is therefore a borrowed form rather than an inherited one.

East of England

Of the nine English regions and Wales, this was the only one where Ava reached the regional top ten in 2025, at ninth with 215 girls.

Great Yarmouth

The only local authority in England and Wales where Ava was the outright most popular girls' name in 2025, with seven babies. Ava shared the top spot in five other areas.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Ava Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Send a note to an Ava you know

The day's observed form is personal, a message from one person to another rather than an organized event. Say what you like about the name and about who carries it.

READ

Read the oldest poems an Ava signed

Frau Ava's Middle High German verse survives, including the poem whose afterword names her two sons. A few lines are enough to see why her work has been called the first German epic.

ASK

Ask an Ava which origin she was given

Find out which tradition she was told the name came from, then look up the other two. The answer she grew up with may not be the only documented one.

WATCH

Watch a film from either famous Ava

Pair Mogambo with Selma for a double bill built entirely on the name. Watch them in order and you move from an Ava in front of the camera to an Ava behind it.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Ava Day?

1 / 8

How many separate entries does the reference Behind the Name give for Ava?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance with no proclamation, resolution, or statute behind it, so it is a normal working day.

COLOPHON

Sources

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

14sources
5primary records
2independently dated
Primary records
U.S. Social Security Administration2025
Top 5 Names in Each of the Last 100 Years
The five most frequent American boy and girl names for every birth year since 1926.
View source
U.S. Social Security Administration
Top names of the 1950s
The 200 most popular American given names of the 1950s, with birth counts for each.
View source
U.S. Social Security Administration
Top names of the 2000s
Decade rankings and birth counts for the 200 most popular American given names of the 2000s.
View source
U.S. Social Security Administration
Top names of the 2010s
Decade rankings and birth counts for the 200 most popular American given names of the 2010s.
View source
Office for National Statistics2026-07-09
Baby names for girls in England and Wales
Rank and count of every top girls' name registered in England and Wales, by region and local authority.
View source
Additional coverage
Behind the Name
Ava (3)
The Germanic entry, a short form of names in awi, of unknown meaning.
View source
Behind the Name
Ava (1)
The English entry, treating Ava as a variant of Eve.
View source
Behind the Name
Ava (2)
The Persian entry, giving the name the sense of voice or sound.
View source
Wikipedia
Ava (poet)
The life and works of Frau Ava, and the Austrian literary prize named after her.
View source
Wikipedia
Saint Ava
The ninth-century abbess, her April 29 commemoration, and her patronage of the blind.
View source
Wikipedia
Name day
The saints'-calendar origin of name days and the countries where they are still kept.
View source
Wikipedia
Ava Gardner
Gardner's discovery by MGM, her Academy Award nomination, and her ranking among screen legends.
View source
Wikipedia
Ava Gardner Museum
The Smithfield museum, the fan who began its collection, and its yearly attendance.
View source
Wikipedia
Ava DuVernay
DuVernay's directing career and the industry firsts documented against her name.
View source
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