National Jeremy Day

England and Wales had this name in its top hundred by 1954, while the United States did not get there until 1970. In the Office for National Statistics list of the hundred most popular boys' names for that first year, Jeremy sits at number seventy, between Douglas and Alexander. Ten years on it has climbed to forty-seven.

In the American data for those same two years, the count stands at 108 boys against 212. Neither figure comes anywhere near a top-hundred name.

Then the two countries swap places. By 1984 Jeremy has dropped off the England and Wales list altogether. In that same year it still ranks thirty-first in the United States, on more than thirteen thousand American boys.

Which leaves the holiday itself, and here the trail runs out. There is no founder, no organising body and no first observance on record for National Jeremy Day, and the origin accounts we could find turn out to be holiday listings quoting one another. The day is kept anyway, which is its own kind of answer.