Holiday Calendar

National Evan Day

Next celebratedSunday, November 29, 2026

Evan Evans and Ieuan Fardd were one man, a Cardiganshire scholar who spent decades copying Welsh manuscripts under an English name and a Welsh one. The Anglicised half gets November 29.

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Last updated September 5, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATENovember 29
OBSERVED INInternationally
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

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

The name is documented from 1731; the observance is not.

The name Evan is documented in Wales from at least 1731, but National Evan Day's own beginning is undocumented: no founder, organisation or establishing record has been located, and no source gives a reason for the date it keeps.

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INTRO

Wales and England disagree about one Welsh name

National Evan Day carries a name that comes in two spellings, and in 2024 Welsh and English parents chose between them very differently. Boys in Wales made Ifan their 92nd most common name that year, while English parents put the same spelling 9,643rd.

Evan, the Anglicised spelling, travels far better: 51st in Wales against 205th in England in the same tables. Evan leans Welsh too: the distance between its two ranks is the 13th widest in that table. Ifan's is sixty-two times as wide, though a gap that size measures the thinness of the English tail as much as any Welsh preference.

So the day belongs to the spelling that got out. In the United States, Evan appears in every annual list of boys' names the Social Security Administration has published since 1880.

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ORIGINS

Evan Day history

CHAPTER 01

The name at the bottom of Evan

The oldest layer of this name is Hebrew. Yohanan travelled into Greek as Ioannes, into Latin as Iohannes, and into English as John. It means Yahweh is gracious.

Welsh built its own forms from the same root. Ieuan, Ifan, Ioan, Iefan and Iwan all descend from that John. Behind the Name files Evan as the Anglicised form of Ifan.

CHAPTER 02

The scholar who answered to both

On 20 May 1731, at Cynhawdref farm in the parish of Lledrod, Cardiganshire, a boy was born who would live between the two spellings. The Dictionary of Welsh Biography lists him as Evan Evans. Welsh readers knew him as Ieuan Fardd.

He spent decades copying Welsh manuscripts, and in 1764 he published Some Specimens of the Poetry of the Antient Welsh Bards. The Anglicised name and the Welsh one belonged to one man at once, long before any register began counting either.

CHAPTER 03

What the registers show, and what they do not

ONS publishes a list of the most common boys' names in England and Wales at ten-year intervals, and the series starts in 1904. Evan holds 88th place in that first column. Ten years on it has slipped to 96th.

Then Evan disappears from eight straight decade columns. Ninety years pass before it comes back, at 99th. The American curve runs later and climbs harder.

Evan first reaches the hundred most common boys' names in the United States in 1983, and holds that ground for thirty-seven consecutive years. Its highest rank in the Social Security Administration's files is 35th. That comes in 2009.

The day built on all of that is the part with no paper trail. No founder, organiser or establishing record for National Evan Day has been located, and nothing on record explains the date it keeps.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Evan Day

SPELLING

In the registers, the spelling is the name.

The Office for National Statistics ranks names by the exact spelling given at birth registration and counts similar names apart. The Social Security Administration works the same way, so Evan, Ewan and Ifan are three different names in the data rather than three versions of one.

SURNAMES

Two Welsh surnames grew from this name

Behind the Name lists Evans and Bevan as surname descendants of Evan, and Ianto as its Welsh pet form. One root ended up carrying a given name, a nickname and two family names at once.

MIGRATION

The Welsh spellings barely register in America

Ifan and Iefan appear in none of the Social Security Administration's annual lists, although rarer Welsh spellings such as Owain, Ioan and Iwan do. Whatever kept those two out of the American files, it was not that the index is too coarse to catch a rare Welsh name.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Evan Evans born in Cardiganshire

A boy born at Cynhawdref farm in the parish of Lledrod would go through life as Evan Evans in English and Ieuan Fardd in Welsh.

Evan ranks 88th in England and Wales

The first ten-yearly snapshot of boys' names in England and Wales puts Evan in 88th place.

Evan's last decade column until 2004

Evan falls to 96th in the second snapshot and then misses the next eight decade columns in a row.

Evan reaches America's top 100

Evan climbs from 108th to 93rd among US boys, its first appearance inside the hundred most common names.

Evan peaks at 35th in America

Evan reaches its highest rank in the Social Security Administration's annual files, a position it has not matched since.

The American top-100 run ends

Evan ranks 96th, closing thirty-seven consecutive years inside the US top 100 for boys.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Evan Day by the Numbers

287,701
Evan births in US records since 1880
2,412
Evan births in US records, 2025
261
Boys named Evan, England and Wales 2025
14
Boys named Ifan, England and Wales 2025

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about National Evan Day

Evan's peak year depends on how you count

By raw births Evan peaks in 2007, with 10,295 boys, while its share and its rank both peak in 2009. Fifteen births separate the two years, so the raw-count winner is close to a tie.

Owen and Evan have changed places twice

Owen outnumbered Evan in every American year file from 1880 to 1958. Evan led from 1959 to 2011, and Owen has led every year since 2012.

Ieuan touched the American floor exactly once

The Social Security Administration prints no name with fewer than five births in a year and sex. Ieuan clears that line in one of its 146 annual boys' lists, in 2008, with five births; Evan's smallest year in those files, 1886, still records 11 boys.

Wales dropped Evan thirty-nine places in one year

ONS ranked Evan 51st among boys in Wales in 2024 and 90th in 2025. The counts behind that move are small, 47 boys against 29, so a single year is not a trend.

MYTH VS FACT

Common Misconceptions

The myth

Evan is just another way of spelling Ewan.

The truth

Behind the Name files Evan as the Anglicised form of the Welsh Ifan, a form of John, and Ewan as the Anglicised form of the Scottish Gaelic Eoghann. They are separate names with separate roots.

The myth

Evan and Owen are the same Welsh name.

The truth

Owen is the Anglicised form of Owain, built on roots meaning well-born, while Evan descends from John. Behind the Name keeps them as separate entries.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Evan Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Ask an Evan which spelling the family used

Spellings run in families, and this one has several. Ask the Evans you know whether a Welsh version sits anywhere further back.

READ

Read a page of early Welsh poetry

Evan Evans spent his life collecting the poetry of the early Welsh bards. Find one of those poems in translation and read it out loud.

SEND

Send a card to every Evan you know

A name day works best when the person actually hears about it. Write the card by hand and say which Evan they are to you.

SETTLE

Settle an argument about Evan and Ewan

Someone in your circle believes those two are the same name. Open the reference entries together and let the Scottish Gaelic root do the work.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Evan Day?

1 / 6

Evan is the Anglicised form of which Welsh name?

Answer

No. No official or public-holiday status has been found for it, and the Federal Register's index of documents published since 1994 carries no mention of the day, so it is a normal working day.

COLOPHON

Sources

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

10sources
4primary records
3independently dated
Primary records
Social Security Administration2026
Beyond the Top 1000 Names: national data on given names
Every US given name with at least five births a year, 1880 to 2025
View source
Office for National Statistics2025
Baby names for boys in England and Wales
Annual boys' name counts with separate England and Wales rankings
View source
Office for National Statistics2024
Top 100 baby names in England and Wales: historical data
The hundred commonest boys' names at ten-year intervals from 1904
View source
Office of the Federal Register
Federal Register document search API
Full-text index of federal documents published since January 1994
View source
Additional coverage
Behind the Name
Meaning, origin and history of the name Evan
Evan as the Anglicised Ifan, with its Welsh variants and surname descendants
View source
Behind the Name
Meaning, origin and history of the name Ewan
Ewan as the Anglicised Scottish Gaelic Eoghann, a separate name from Evan
View source
Behind the Name
Meaning, origin and history of the name Owen (1)
Owen as the Anglicised Owain, from roots meaning well-born
View source
Behind the Name
Meaning, origin and history of the name John
John from Hebrew Yohanan through Greek and Latin, meaning Yahweh is gracious
View source
Behind the Name
Name Days for the name Evan
The site's name-day index, which carries no entry for Evan
View source
Dictionary of Welsh Biography
EVANS, EVAN (Ieuan Fardd or Ieuan Brydydd Hir 1731 - 1788)
Life of the Cardiganshire scholar who used both spellings of the name
View source
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