Holiday Calendar

National Caroline Day

Next celebratedWednesday, October 28, 2026

Every letter of the Leibniz-Clarke correspondence passed through one Caroline, and the first comet a woman discovered was found by another. October 28 hands the day to a name that has never once been fashionable.

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Last updated September 6, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEOctober 28
OBSERVED INInternationally
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

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

Circulated into the calendar, never formally declared.

Searches of government proclamations, trademark filings and news archives turned up no founding document for National Caroline Day, and its first year remains undetermined. The earliest dated public marking located is a WalesOnline post on October 28, 2024.

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INTRO

A fixture for 146 years, a trend in none of them

National Caroline Day honors a name that has never been fashionable in the US. It has also never gone out of fashion, across 146 years of federal record keeping.

The Social Security Administration has published national baby-name counts since 1880. Caroline appears in the top 500 in every year of that record. It has never once reached the top 50.

Both halves of that are odd. Only 43 girls' names hold the full run, counting ties the way the agency's own tables do. Seven of those never reached the top 50, and Caroline is one of them.

The field got harder as it went. The agency listed 942 girls' names in its first year. Its most recent list holds 17,297.

Caroline sat in the same narrow band through all of it. Its best showing was number 55. The day itself is far younger than the record it marks, and far less documented.

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ORIGINS

Caroline Day history

INTRODUCTION

Caroline of Ansbach came to England and became Princess of Wales. She came with a correspondent. Leibniz had tutored her before that, and when he stayed behind, the two kept writing across the Channel.

What followed was not court chatter. Leibniz and the English theologian Samuel Clarke began arguing over space and time. Their exchange ran to five letters, and every one of them passed through Caroline.

CHAPTER 01

The princess who carried the letters

Clarke was writing with Newton at his shoulder. Leibniz suspected it, and Caroline confirmed it, reporting that Clarke's letters were not written without the advice of "Chevalier Newton". The exchange went on to become Clarke's most read work.

Her own letters did not travel with it. For roughly three centuries, editions printed the argument and left out the woman it had moved through.

CHAPTER 02

Restored to the title in 2023

Oxford University Press published a new edition in November 2023, edited by Gregory Brown. It runs to 998 pages. The title reads The Leibniz-Caroline-Clarke Correspondence.

CHAPTER 03

A second Caroline, on fifty pounds a year

Caroline Herschel crossed the same Channel in 1772, at twenty-two, to join her brother William and to sing in his Bath concerts. She arrived as a singer. She left her mark as an astronomer.

In 1786 she became the first woman to discover a comet. After spotting her last one she rode nearly thirty miles to Greenwich to report it. George III had already made her the first woman in Britain paid to pursue science, with the job title of assistant.

CHAPTER 04

The day, and what the record does not hold

National Caroline Day has nothing like that paperwork behind it. Proclamation searches, trademark filings and news archives return no founding document and no first year. What the day has instead is use: on October 28, 2024, WalesOnline told its readers to spoil the Carolines in their lives.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Letters begin passing through Caroline

The Leibniz and Clarke exchange on space and time started moving through Caroline of Ansbach.

First woman to discover a comet

Caroline Herschel spotted the object now catalogued as Comet C/1786 P1.

A gold medal from the astronomers

The Royal Astronomical Society honored Herschel for a catalogue of more than 2,500 nebulae.

Caroline enters the American record

The first year of national Social Security data already ranks the name 75th among girls.

Sweet Caroline reaches number four

Neil Diamond wrote the song in a hotel room the night before the session and it peaked that August.

Her letters return to print

Oxford published an edition that restored Caroline of Ansbach's letters and put her name in the title.

MYTH VS FACT

Common Misconceptions

The myth

North and South Carolina are named after a woman called Caroline.

The truth

Carolina comes from Carolus, the Latin form of Charles. Charles I's 1629 grant to Sir Robert Heath created the name, Charles II renewed it in a 1663 charter, and the colony was divided into North and South in 1710.

The myth

Sweet Caroline was written about Caroline Kennedy.

The truth

Neil Diamond said so in 2007, after performing at her 50th birthday party. In 2014 he told NBC's Today that the song was about his then-wife, Marcia Murphey, and that he simply needed a three-syllable name. Writing for the National Recording Registry, critic Jon Bream notes the later account sits awkwardly with the calendar, since that marriage came months after the song's June 1969 release.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Caroline Day

LANGUAGE

The root of Caroline is a word that simply meant man.

Caroline is the French feminine form of Carolus, the Latin form of Charles, and the root element karl was an Old High German and Old Norse word meaning man. The name reads as thoroughly feminine now, and it was built by inflecting a word that meant man.

MUSIC

A 1969 single that turned into a public ritual

The Boston Red Sox began playing Sweet Caroline at Fenway Park in 1997, and from 2002 it held a fixed slot in the middle of the eighth inning. After the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013, Neil Diamond said he would donate all future royalties from the song to One Fund Boston.

ASTRONOMY

The name is still printed on sky charts

A lunar crater called C. Herschel and the asteroid 281 Lucretia both carry Caroline Herschel's name. Two open clusters are nicknamed for her as well, NGC 2360 as Caroline's Cluster and NGC 7789 as Caroline's Rose.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Caroline Day by the Numbers

250,410
US girls named Caroline since 1880
5,022
Girls named Caroline at its 2000 peak
2,646
US girls named Caroline in 2025
No. 96
Caroline's US popularity rank, 2025
No. 329
Caroline's lowest yearly rank, 1956

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Caroline Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Look the name up in the federal data

The Social Security Administration publishes a file for every year since 1880. Find where Caroline sat the year someone you know was born.

READ

Read the letters a princess carried

Oxford's 2023 edition prints Caroline of Ansbach's letters beside those of Leibniz and Clarke. Earlier printings usually left her letters out.

FOLLOW

Follow a comet hunter's career

Royal Museums Greenwich tells the story of Caroline Herschel's working life. She spent twenty months correcting John Flamsteed's star catalogue and published the result through the Royal Society.

KEEP

Keep it as informally as it arrived

The day has no organising body and no fixed ritual attached to it. Telling a Caroline that it exists is most of the observance.

PLAY

Play the song and let the room finish it

Sweet Caroline has outlived every explanation its writer has given for it. That is no reason to sit out the chorus.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Caroline Day?

1 / 8

The Carolinas are named after whom?

Answer

No. No official or public-holiday status was found for it, so it is a normal working day.

COLOPHON

Sources

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

12sources
4primary records
6independently dated
Primary records
U.S. Social Security Administration2026
National data on baby names (names.zip)
Counts of US births by given name, sex and year, 1880 to 2025.
View source
U.S. Social Security Administration
Top Names of the 2010s
The agency's published decade ranking, with Caroline listed 63rd.
View source
Oxford University Press2023-11-24
The Leibniz-Caroline-Clarke Correspondence
Gregory Brown's 998-page edition restoring Caroline of Ansbach's letters.
View source
WalesOnline2024-10-28
It's National Caroline Day
A regional news brand marking the day on October 28, 2024.
View source
Additional coverage
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Samuel Clarke
How the Leibniz and Clarke letters of 1715 to 1716 passed through Caroline of Ansbach.
View source
Royal Museums Greenwich
Caroline Herschel: the first paid female astronomer
Herschel's comets, her royal salary and the objects later named for her.
View source
Library of Congress2018
Sweet Caroline, Neil Diamond (1969), National Recording Registry essay by Jon Bream
Diamond's two conflicting accounts of the song, and the chronology problem with the later one.
View source
CNN2014-10-20
Neil Diamond reveals story behind Sweet Caroline
Contemporaneous reporting of Diamond's 2014 Today appearance.
View source
NCpedia, State Library of North Carolina2007
State Names and Nicknames
Why Carolina derives from Carolus, with the 1629, 1663 and 1710 milestones.
View source
Online Etymology Dictionary
Carolina
The 1564 French use of Caroline for Charles IX and the 1663 English colony name.
View source
Behind the Name
Caroline
Caroline given as the French feminine form of Carolus, with Charles as its masculine form.
View source
Behind the Name
Name Element KARL
The root element glossed as an Old High German and Old Norse word for man.
View source
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