Holiday Calendar

National Daniel Day

Next celebratedTuesday, July 6, 2027

National Daniel Day carries a workplace conspiracy inside it: officials talk King Darius into banning prayer, knowing exactly whose habit it will break. The lions' den follows, and the name has never fallen below 55th since 1880.

Countdown to the day
--DAYS
--HRS
--MIN
--SEC
Last updated September 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEJuly 6
OBSERVED INInternationally
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

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

A thoroughly recorded name attached to an unrecorded day.

National Daniel Day circulates through holiday listings and ordinary July 6 posts, and that is the whole of its documented existence. A phrase search of the US Federal Register returns zero documents for the name.

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

146 years inside the top 55, but a 50-place swing within it

The Social Security Administration has published a list of American boys' names every year since 1880. Just 471 names appear on all of them. National Daniel Day honors one of the six that never once fell far.

Rank those 471 names by how far each one ever dropped, and Daniel finishes sixth. Only James, William, John, Joseph and David have never sunk as low as Daniel's worst rank of 55th. That is the case for calling the name steady.

The same record makes the opposite case. Of those six names, Daniel is the one that travelled furthest, swinging 50 rank positions from its best year to its worst. It sat 25th when the list began and 22nd in the latest year on record.

None of that motion comes from the holiday. National Daniel Day has no instrument behind it, and a phrase search of the US Federal Register returns zero documents for the name.

Advertisement
ORIGINS

Daniel Day history

INTRODUCTION

The story that carried this name into English is a workplace conspiracy. King Darius appoints 120 officials and three overseers above them, and Daniel is one of the three. His colleagues persuade the king to outlaw prayer to anyone but himself, knowing exactly whose habit it will break.

He prays anyway, and the punishment is the lions' den. It is worth asking how a story about one official refusing to stop praying produced one of the most durable names in two national registries.

CHAPTER 01

A book set four centuries before it was written

The Book of Daniel presents itself as an eyewitness to the Babylonian exile. Bible Odyssey's Amy C. Merrill Willis notes that chapter eight claims to happen "circa 546 B.C.E." while the passage itself was written in or near Jerusalem around 167 BCE.

That later date is not incidental. It is the year Antiochus IV outlawed Judaism in Jerusalem, desecrated the Temple and killed many Jews. A story about refusing a king's religious edict was written for readers living under one.

CHAPTER 02

The name England nearly lost

Daniel entered English use in the Middle Ages on the strength of that figure. Then it faded. Behind the Name records that it "became rare by the 15th century" and was revived only after the Protestant Reformation.

The revival held. By the time any government began counting given names, Daniel was long since established rather than climbing into view.

CHAPTER 03

A day the record does not explain

The holiday is the one part of this story that left no paper. It surfaces in calendar listings and in ordinary posts each July 6, and that is the entire documented extent of it.

The Federal Register knows the phrase Daniel Day exactly once, in a 2009 banking notice concerning a man of that name. Whoever put this day on the calendar left the name to do the talking, which, on the evidence of the last 146 years, it is well equipped to do.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Daniel Day

RESISTANCE

Gandhi called Daniel's disobedience satyagraha in its purest form.

Writing about Daniel's refusal to stop praying when the law forbade it, Gandhi said he "offered satyagraha [truth force] in its purest form". The chapter that gave English its stock metaphor for a hostile room also gave him a model for refusing an unjust law.

MEANING

The name is a complete sentence

Daniel is the Hebrew Daniyyel, built from din, meaning to judge, and el, meaning God, so the name states outright that God is my judge. The result is a full sentence rather than a label, subject and verb included.

BEARERS

Its carriers crossed fields and centuries

The revived name attached itself to an English author, a Swiss mathematician and an American frontiersman inside seventy-five years. Daniel Defoe, Daniel Bernoulli and Daniel Boone were born between 1660 and 1734, and none of their reputations had anything to do with the others.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Daniel Day by the Numbers

1,982,812
US Daniels recorded since 1880
83 years
Unbroken run in the US top 25
13 of 13
England and Wales snapshots in the top 100
57th to 59th
England and Wales rank, 1904 and 2024

TIMELINE

Timeline

Daniel's visions written in Jerusalem

The book's visionary chapters are composed during Antiochus IV's ban on Judaism, roughly four centuries after the exile they depict.

The name goes rare in England

Daniel falls out of favour in England after its medieval run and stays there until the Protestant Reformation revives it.

America starts counting names

The first year of Social Security Administration name data records Daniel 25th among boys, with 643 occurrences.

Daniel's lowest American rank

Daniel falls to 55th, the deepest point of its 146-year run, and holds there through 1916 before climbing again.

Fourth place in England and Wales

Daniel reaches 4th in the Office for National Statistics snapshot for England and Wales, and repeats the rank a decade later.

The American peak

Daniel reaches 5th among US boys on 38,559 boys recorded, its largest single year in the entire record.

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about National Daniel Day

A Daniel Day has been proclaimed, just not this one

Danielsville, Georgia's council proclaimed December 6 as General Allen Daniel Day for the man the county seat is named after. It is a surname, one town, and the wrong month.

The lions' den was an office metaphor first

A Neo-Assyrian letter from an ousted court official named Urad-Gula to King Ashurbanipal describes the royal court as a den or pit of lions, and it predates the Book of Daniel.

Lions do not actually live in dens

Zoologically they live out in the open, and no zoo-like dens are attested archaeologically in the ancient world. Brent A. Strawn suggests Daniel's den may be better understood as a pen or enclosure.

The prophet may be a literary invention

The book has Daniel serving Babylonian, Median and Persian kings for roughly seventy years. Amy C. Merrill Willis calls that career virtually impossible and reads the character as probably a fictional hero.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Daniel Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Look up a Daniel's rank in their birth year

The Social Security Administration's baby names data goes back to 1880 and is published year by year. Find where the name sat the year someone you know was born.

READ

Read the lions' den chapter for yourself

It reads like a procedural: a promotion, a conspiracy, and a law written to trap one man. The ending is the part everyone knows, and the setup is the part almost nobody does.

ASK

Ask a Daniel how they got the name

There is usually a relative, a book, or a particular year behind the choice. The answer tends to say as much about the parents as the child.

WRITE

Write the meaning out for someone named Daniel

Copy out the Hebrew and its literal reading, and hand it over. Most people have never seen their own name written in the language it came from.

TEACH

Teach a child where their own name comes from

Every name has an etymology, a first appearance and a popularity curve. Daniel is a good worked example because all three are unusually well documented.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Daniel Day?

1 / 8

What does the name Daniel literally mean?

Answer

No. A phrase search of the US Federal Register returns zero documents for National Daniel Day, so it carries no proclamation, no legal standing and no day off.

COLOPHON

Sources

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

11sources
5primary records
4independently dated
Primary records
Federal Register
Federal Register documents API, exact-phrase search
The searchable corpus of US proclamations, rules and notices.
View source
Social Security Administration2026-08
Popular Baby Names: national data, 1880 to 2025
Every US given name with at least five holders per year since 1880.
View source
Social Security Administration
Top names of the 2010s
SSA's own published decade rankings, against which the archived file was checked.
View source
Social Security Administration
Background information for popular names
How the agency builds, ranks and privacy-screens its name data.
View source
Office for National Statistics2025-07
Top 100 baby names in England and Wales: historical data
Baby name rankings for England and Wales at ten-year intervals from 1904.
View source
Additional coverage
Behind the Name
Meaning, origin and history of the name Daniel
The Hebrew roots of Daniel and its medieval decline and Reformation revival in England.
View source
Behind the Name
Name Days for the name Daniel
Daniel's name day date in each of fourteen European calendar traditions.
View source
Bible Odyssey
Daniel
Amy C. Merrill Willis on the book's dating and whether its hero ever lived.
View source
Bible Odyssey2021-11
Daniel in the Lions' Den
David M. Valeta on the palace conspiracy of Daniel 6, and Gandhi's reading of it.
View source
Bible Odyssey2017-06
Was There a Lions' Den?
Brent A. Strawn on real lions, royal menageries, and an older Assyrian metaphor.
View source
MainStreet Newspapers
Danielsville proclaims Dec. 6 General Allen Daniel Day
A Georgia council's proclamation for the general its county seat is named after.
View source
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

Related holidays

TUE
31
Aug 2026
National Dan Day
Names

National Dan Day

Everyone called Dan gets the day, whichever name is on their paperwork: Dan means he judged in Hebrew, while the fuller Daniel adds the element for God and means God is my judge.

58Read
SUN
25
Oct 2026
National Danielle Day
Names

National Danielle Day

National Danielle Day marks a French name that English took up late and then took up hard. Underneath the spelling is a small Hebrew sentence, dan for judge and El for God, which the name has been saying all along.

48Read
SAT
27
Feb 2026
National Susan Day
Names

National Susan Day

Nearly every Susan in America was born inside two decades, which makes February 27 less a name day than a reunion: their average age is roughly 66.

182Read
FOR MARKETERS & CREATORS

Turn every day into a moment your audience actually shows up for.

8.4M
Monthly readers
5K+
Holidays tracked
Holiday Calendar for Brands Developer API