Is National Max Day an official holiday?

No. It has no legal standing anywhere that could be found, and the Federal Register carries no document using the phrase.

Is National Max Day the same as Air Max Day?

No. Air Max Day is Nike's sneaker event, held on March 26, the date the Air Max 1 originally released in 1987.

Do people named Max have a name day in other countries?

Yes. Behind the Name lists February 1 in Sweden and November 18 in Finland as name days for Max, and October 12 in Germany for Maximilian.

National Max Day

Next celebratedThursday, January 21, 2027

The American Kennel Club's 2025 count put Max first among boys' names, and every one of those boys was a dog; on American birth records Max comes 180th. January 21 keeps the date for the short form.

See how to celebrate

Countdown to the day

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Last updated September 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEJanuary 21

OBSERVED INInternationally

CATEGORYNames

ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY

Not documented

FIRST OBSERVED

Not documented

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

No author on record, and a late paper trail.

No documented founder or formal establishment record has been identified for National Max Day. The earliest surviving archived listing of the observance was captured in October 2022, and the Federal Register carries no document using the phrase.

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INTRO

A year in second place, then first again

National Max Day falls on January 21. The American Kennel Club's 2025 count put Max first among boys' names for dogs. It had lost that place the year before to Milo.

The other American list tells a quieter story. Social Security Administration records put Max 180th among names given to baby boys in 2025.

The two lists are not counting the same thing. One counts the call names on kennel club registrations. The other counts names written on American birth records.

ORIGINS

Max Day history

CHAPTER 01

Two boys and seven pranks

Wilhelm Busch published Max und Moritz in October 1865. The full German title promises a boys' story in seven pranks. Two boys wreak havoc on their village, and the targets are ordinary: the widow Bolte and her chickens, the teacher Lämpel and his pipe.

The book travelled further than the village. By 1910 more than half a million German copies had been printed, and Britannica calls Busch the first fully professional and truly popular comic strip artist. It also calls Max und Moritz the forerunner of The Katzenjammer Kids, the strip Rudolph Dirks drew for William Randolph Hearst from 1897.

Dirks did not keep the boys' names. His brothers were Hans and Fritz. In 1912 he lost the right to the strip's title, and later renamed it The Captain and the Kids.

CHAPTER 02

The day itself leaves almost no trail

The name has a long record. The observance does not. No founder, no organising body and no establishing announcement has been found for National Max Day.

The Internet Archive's record puts the earliest surviving listing of the day in October 2022, and nothing older than that survives. One large listing site has no page for it at all, though its captures of a different January 21 observance run back to 2012.

The federal record is emptier still. The Federal Register carries no document using the phrase.

Those absences were tested rather than assumed. Each register was checked with something that certainly appears in it and with a name that cannot, so a query that had simply failed would have come back empty for both.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Max und Moritz appears

Wilhelm Busch publishes his story of two boys and seven pranks in October. The full German title promises a boys' story in seven pranks, and the book delivers exactly that.

The Katzenjammer Kids begins

Rudolph Dirks creates the strip at William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal, inspired by Busch's picture story. Britannica calls Max und Moritz that strip's forerunner.

Half a million copies

By this year more than half a million German copies of Max und Moritz have been printed, and Busch's work has been translated into many languages.

The strip loses its name

Dirks moves to the New York World and loses the right to the title Katzenjammer Kids. He later renames the strip The Captain and the Kids because of wartime anti-German feeling.

Mad Max arrives

The film series begins, giving the name a screen bearer that Behind the Name still lists alongside its historical ones.

The first surviving listing

The earliest archived listing of National Max Day anywhere in the Internet Archive's record is captured in October. Nothing older survives.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Max Day by the Numbers

2,025: US boys named Max in 2025
48th: Max's rank among boys, England and Wales
1,061: Boys named Max, England and Wales
1,924: US boys named Maxwell in 2025
497: US boys named Maximilian in 2025

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Max Day

Range

Behind the Name lists Max in use across eleven languages.

Behind the Name lists Max in use as a given name in German, English, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Dutch, Czech, Russian, French and Catalan. It names the sociologist Max Weber and the physicist Max Planck among its bearers. The name is not English property.

Direction

In England and Wales, the name has slipped

The Office for National Statistics publishes its own change columns, and they put Max twenty places lower there than it stood in 2015. The date on the calendar is fixed. The standing of the name it marks is not.

Ambiguity

Three longer names, one short form

Behind the Name files Max as a short form of Maximilian or Maxim, and in English of Maxwell as well. A day for Max therefore gathers people whose legal names do not match one another. What they share is the name they answer to, not the one on the certificate.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Max Day

Message the Max you know

Send a note on January 21 to someone who carries the name. A text, a card or a call all do the job, and the date supplies the excuse.

READ

Read the seven pranks

Wilhelm Busch's Max und Moritz is free to read at Project Gutenberg in the original German, pictures included.

LOOK

Look up which name yours is short for

Behind the Name's entry sets out the longer names Max stands in for, and the languages that use it on its own.

CHECK

Check where the name sits with the dogs

The American Kennel Club publishes a top ten of boys' and girls' dog call names each year, drawn from its registrations and its Canine Partners enrollments.

COMPARE

Compare the two registries yourself

The Office for National Statistics publishes the full England and Wales top 100 with counts, so you can put Max beside the names around it.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Max Day?

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On what date is National Max Day observed?

Answer

January 21 already appears in the calendar for related names: it is the day the Byzantine church commemorates Maximus the Confessor, and Behind the Name lists it as the name day for Maxim in Romania. No source connects either to this observance, and nothing on record says who chose the date for it.

COLOPHON

Sources

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

16sources

8primary records

5independently dated

Primary records

Social Security Administration2025

Popular Baby Names: national data

Per-year counts of every US given name appearing at least five times on a birth record, 1880 to 2025. The 2025 file gives Max 2,025 boys at rank 180, Maxwell 1,924 and Maximilian 497.