Holiday Calendar

National Judy Day

Next celebratedWednesday, January 20, 2027

Punch's wife was Joan through the 1700s, and the one reference work that records her becoming Judy says it happened 'for some unknown reason'. January 20 keeps the day for a name people tend to arrive at rather than start with.

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Last updated September 6, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEJanuary 20
OBSERVED INInternationally
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
~2022
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

The trail starts with a web capture in October 2022.

No documented founder or formal establishment record has been identified for National Judy Day. The earliest surviving trace of the observance is an archived holiday listing captured in October 2022, and no source documents why the day falls on January 20.

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

A puppet changed her name and nobody recorded why

Punch's wife has not always been Judy. Through the 1700s she was Joan, and a well-known character in her own right. National Judy Day carries a name with that habit, one people have often arrived at rather than started with.

The switch is recorded and unexplained. The World Encyclopedia of Puppetry Arts gives it a single clause, "for some unknown reason, Joan had changed her name to Judy by 1818", and offers nothing further.

The pattern held. The name keeps turning up on people, and on animals, who were called something else first.

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ORIGINS

Judy Day history

INTRODUCTION

In 1932 a ten-year-old singer named Frances Gumm collected her first rave review in Variety. Two years later, on the comedian George Jessel's suggestion, she took the surname Garland. The first name she chose herself, lifting it from a popular 1934 Hoagy Carmichael song.

She was not the first Judy to come by the name secondhand, and she was not the last. The habit runs through the whole record, and it reaches further than a Hollywood biography.

CHAPTER 01

A pointer called Shudi

A liver and white Pointer was born in Shanghai in February 1936. The National Archives records that she was called Shudi first, and that the name was anglicised inside her first six months. The Royal Navy bought her that year as a ship's mascot.

She was aboard HMS Grasshopper when Japanese aircraft bombed it in early 1942, and she found the freshwater spring that kept its marooned crew alive. In a camp at Gloegoer Medan she attached herself to Leading Aircraftsman Frank Williams, who talked the guards into registering her as prisoner 81A. She is the only dog known to have been officially registered as a British prisoner of war.

CHAPTER 02

The decade the order reversed

Judy is a pet form of Judith, which reached English from the Hebrew Yehudith by way of Greek and Latin. In the 1930s the short form sat far behind the long one in American birth records. The 1940s were the peak for both.

Then both names began to fall, and the order between them flipped. The Social Security Administration's own decade tables put Judy ahead of Judith for the first time in the 1950s, and still ahead in the 1960s. By the 1970s neither name appeared anywhere in the published top two hundred.

CHAPTER 03

A day with no author

The observance itself has no such paper trail. No founder, proclamation or registry filing for National Judy Day has been identified, and no source explains its January date. The earliest surviving trace of it is a web capture from October 2022, which makes the day younger than every other date in its own story.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Pepys sees Punch in Covent Garden

Samuel Pepys recorded an Italian puppet play in London on 9 May, the first English record of a Punch and Judy style show.

Joan becomes Judy

By this year Punch's wife had taken the name she still carries, and no source explains the change.

The show reaches print

The first published text of the play appeared with illustrations by George Cruikshank, drawn largely from the performances of the showman Giovanni Piccini.

Frances Gumm picks a first name

The singer already billed as Garland took Judy from a popular Hoagy Carmichael song of that year.

A Dickin Medal for prisoner 81A

The PDSA announced on 30 April that Judy, a Pointer held in Japanese prison camps, would receive the award known as the Animals' Victoria Cross.

The day's earliest surviving trace

A holiday listing for National Judy Day was captured by the Internet Archive on 5 October, and nothing found dates the observance earlier.
I remember thinking what on earth is a beautiful English Pointer like this doing here, with no one to care for her. I realised that even though she was thin, she was a survivor.
Frank WilliamsLeading Aircraftsman, and a fellow prisoner at Gloegoer Medan in 1942

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why National Judy Day Matters

BY THE NUMBERS

National Judy Day by the Numbers

#112
Judy's US rank in the 1930s
#15
Judy's US rank in the 1940s
167,719
US girls named Judy, 1940s
218,037
US girls named Judith, 1940s

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe National Judy Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Ask a Judy where the name came from

Plenty of Judys are Judiths on paper and have a story about which one they answer to. It is the shortest route to the thing this day is actually about.

WATCH

Watch a Punch and Judy show

Over a hundred performers still work the show, carrying the traditional title of professor. The London Museum records it running at fairs, festivals and the seaside, which is the only place to meet the original Judy at full volume.

WRITE

Write to a Judy you have lost touch with

The name peaked in the middle of the last century and has been scarce since, so the Judys in your life are likely to share a generation. A card lands harder than a notification.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Judy Day?

1 / 8

What was Punch's wife called before she was Judy?

Answer

No. No proclamation, statute or official recognition of the day was found at any level of government, so it is a normal working day everywhere.

COLOPHON

Sources

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

10sources
5primary records
1independently dated
Primary records
The National Archives
Judy, the only dog registered as a prisoner of war
The Pointer's service record, her prisoner number and her Dickin Medal papers.
View source
U.S. Social Security Administration
Top names of the 1940s
The agency's rank-and-count table of the 200 most common American names of the decade.
View source
U.S. Social Security Administration
Top names of the 1950s
The decade in which Judy first outranked Judith in American birth records.
View source
U.S. Social Security Administration
Top names of the 1930s
Judy near the bottom of the top two hundred, a decade before its climb.
View source
American Library Association2010
Most frequently challenged authors of the 21st century
ALA's annual lists of challenged authors, and the five Judy Blume titles among the century's most challenged books.
View source
Additional coverage
World Encyclopedia of Puppetry Arts
Punch and Judy
The puppetry reference that dates Joan's change of name to Judy, and admits it cannot explain it.
View source
London Museum
A brief history of Punch and Judy puppet shows
Samuel Pepys's 1662 diary entry, quoted in full, and the show's long run on London streets.
View source
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Punch
Confirmation that Punch's wife was a well-known figure called Joan before she was Judy.
View source
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Judy Garland
Her birth as Frances Gumm, and the 1934 song she took her first name from.
View source
Online Etymology Dictionary
Judy
Judy as a pet form of Judith, with the word's figurative senses traced to the puppet show.
View source
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