Is National Catherine Day a public holiday?

No. It is an unofficial observance with no legal standing located anywhere, so banks, schools and offices stay open.

Is National Catherine Day the same as Saint Catherine's Day?

No. In the French name-day calendar Catherine's day is 25 November, and the January 13 listing is a separate, modern entry.

National Catherine Day

Next celebratedWednesday, January 13, 2027

Catherine topped France's birth register for exactly one year: 1960, when Insee counted 18,040 newborn Catherines.

See how to celebrate

Countdown to the day

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Last updated August 19, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEJanuary 13

OBSERVED INUnited States

CATEGORYNames

ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY

Not documented

FIRST OBSERVED

Not documented

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

An observance the record cannot account for.

No founder, sponsor, or establishment record has been identified for National Catherine Day. A full-text search of the U.S. Federal Register returns no document carrying the name, and the observance appears only as an entry on holiday listing calendars.

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INTRO

Topping France's birth register for exactly one year

The name behind National Catherine Day once topped a national birth register, for exactly one year. In 1960, more baby girls in France were registered as Catherine than as anything else. Insee counted 18,040 of them.

Its biggest year was not its best year. Three years on, the register counted 19,900 girls named Catherine, against 25,665 named Sylvie.

The day itself is the undocumented half. The name runs through Insee, the Social Security Administration and the English statute book. No record identifies who put the holiday on 13 January.

ORIGINS

Catherine Day history

INTRODUCTION

Catherine is an English name that England imported. The Online Etymology Dictionary traces the spelling from French Catherine, from Medieval Latin Katerina, from Latin Ecaterina.

Behind the Name files it the same way, as the French form of Katherine. Two women carried it into the English record by marriage. Each left a mark, one on the statute book and one on the map.

CHAPTER 01

The queen who was locked out

Catherine of Aragon, whom the Society of Antiquaries of London spells Katherine, wanted her marriage case heard in Rome. Parliament shut the door.

The Society of Antiquaries of London records that the first Act put before Parliament in 1533, the Act in Restraint of Appeals, banned English subjects from appealing to any foreign authority in church matters. It blocked her from asking the Pope for support. The Act of Supremacy followed the next year, asserting that the king was, and always had been, supreme head of the church in England.

CHAPTER 02

A dowry that moved a map

The second Catherine came from Portugal. Royal Museums Greenwich calls her dowry "two million crowns and the cities of Bombay and Tangiers thrown in for good measure".

Britannica dates the transfer. Bombay came under British control in 1661 as part of that marriage settlement. The crown ceded it to the East India Company in 1668.

Her name reached New York next. In 1683 the province established Queens county and named it for the same queen.

CHAPTER 03

Where the trail stops

Nothing in that record points to 13 January. The French name-day calendar gives that date to Hilaire and Yvette, and marks Catherine on 25 November.

National Catherine Day sits on modern listing calendars instead. A full-text search of the Federal Register returns no document carrying the name, and nothing on file explains the date.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Catherine Day

RECORDS

Twelve straight decade tables inside the American top 100.

Catherine appears in the girls' top 100 of the Social Security Administration's decade tables from the 1880s through the 1990s, and peaked at 20th in the 1910s. It slips to 111th in the 2000s, 187th in the 2010s, and out of the top 200 in the 2020-2025 table.

LANGUAGE

The name that became a French idiom

French girls' devotion groups were responsible for re-capping Saint Catherine's statue each 25 November, and they left the group on marrying. The phrase 'coiffer sainte Catherine', to cap Saint Catherine, came to mean being unmarried at or past 25, as the ICOM Costume Committee sets out.

DEMOGRAPHY

In France, the fall is on the record too

Insee recorded 30 girls named Catherine born in France in 2025, ranked 1,211st on its list. The name has not left the register, but it now sits outside the country's top thousand.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Parliament bars appeals to Rome

The Act in Restraint of Appeals banned English subjects from appealing to any foreign authority in church matters, blocking Catherine of Aragon's case.

The Act of Supremacy follows

Parliament asserted that the king was, and always had been, supreme head of the church in England.

Bombay enters a marriage settlement

The island came under British control as part of the settlement between Charles II and Catherine of Braganza.

The crown hands Bombay on

The English crown ceded Bombay to the East India Company.

Queens county takes her name

The province of New York established Queens county and named it for Charles II's queen consort.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Catherine Day by the Numbers

505,574: US girls named Catherine, 1926-2025
52nd: Catherine's US rank over a century
19: Consecutive years in France's top ten
~394,700: French girls named Catherine since 1900

GOOD TO KNOW

National Catherine Day Around the World

Paris fashion workshops

On 25 November an unmarried 25-year-old woman in the trade becomes a Catherinette and is crowned with a green and yellow hat her colleagues built in secret. Hat competitions with prizes have run since the 1930s.

Northern France, Grand-Est and Nouvelle-Aquitaine

The older village version, which wished unmarried young women a marriage, is still observed in these regions.

Paris City Hall

The custom almost vanished in the 1990s as its spinster framing came to look dated. It returned as a trade celebration for young men and women together, with the Paris municipality receiving Catherinettes at the City Hall.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Catherine Day

Look up the name in France's public file

Insee publishes its national first-names file free, with a count and a rank for every year since 1900. You can find Catherine, or any other name, in a few minutes.

MAKE

Make a green and yellow hat for someone

Green and yellow are the Catherinette colours. Build a hat in them for a Catherine you know, and keep it from her until the day.

VISIT

Visit the county a queen's name still marks

Queens county in New York has carried the name of Charles II's queen consort since 1683. The New York City borough is coextensive with it, so spend the day there.

READ

Read the Act that shut a queen out

The Society of Antiquaries of London sets out the 1533 Act in Restraint of Appeals and what it did to Catherine of Aragon's case. Read it and the break with Rome stops being abstract.

MARK

Mark the other Catherine date as well

In France the name has a second day in the calendar, on 25 November. Add it and the Catherines in your life get two.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Catherine Day?

1 / 8

In 1960, Catherine was the most-given girl's name in which country?

Answer

January 13 is the date every holiday listing carries for the day. No source documents why that date was chosen, and a full-text search of the Federal Register turns up no proclamation or document naming the day.

COLOPHON

Sources

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

15sources

5primary records

6independently dated

Primary records

Insee2026-07

Fichier des prenoms, national file 1900-2025

Every first name given in France since 1900, with yearly counts and ranks.