Holiday Calendar

National Natalie Day

Next celebratedTuesday, July 20, 2027

A name that literally means Christmas gets its day: Natalie descends from dies natalis, Church Latin for Christmas Day, yet only three of 863 notable Natalies were born on December 25.

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Last updated September 4, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATEJuly 20
OBSERVED INInternationally
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

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

Local newsprint carries it; official records do not.

No founder, proclamation, or establishing announcement has been located for National Natalie Day, and no official record names it. It circulates as an unattributed name day, marked by local press and by a magazine's own social account.

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

Christmas Day hiding inside an everyday American name

National Natalie Day honors a name that literally means Christmas. Not a virtue, not a flower, not a place: a specific square on the calendar. The Online Etymology Dictionary traces Natalie through Church Latin Natalia to (dies) natalis, the birthday, which in Church Latin means Christmas Day.

Noel descends from the same Latin phrase. And Noel is used the way the etymology suggests it should be.

Among the people Wikidata records with a full date of birth, 176 of 1,349 named Noel were born on Christmas Day. For Natalie the figure is 3 of 863. That is the ordinary rate, the same share you get from a name like Julia or Caroline.

That database holds only people notable enough to have an entry, so this measures who gets written down rather than every birth. Within that limit the pattern is not subtle. One name kept its meaning in practice, and the other kept it only in the dictionary.

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ORIGINS

Natalie Day history

INTRODUCTION

Start with a Natalia, not a Natalie. She was the wife of Saint Adrian of Nicomedia, a martyr of the fourth century.

Behind the Name records her veneration in the Orthodox Church, and it records where the name then stayed. The name has traditionally been more common among Eastern Christians than among those in the West.

CHAPTER 01

A Russian name in a San Francisco hospital

The American story turns on one family. Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko was born in San Francisco on July 20, 1938, to first-generation Russian immigrant parents. The world came to know her as Natalie Wood.

Miracle on 34th Street did nothing for the name. Wood played a child in that Christmas picture, released in 1947. The year it opened, 434 American girls were named Natalie, against 389 the year before.

Then came Rebel Without a Cause, and the numbers turned. The count was 404 in 1955, against 1,055 in 1957. Behind the Name credits Wood with the name's American career, and the birth record shows the climb beginning in those years.

CHAPTER 02

Where the day itself comes from

The observance is the youngest thing in this story and the thinnest. It has no founder on record and no proclamation behind it. The earliest mention that can be dated from a source read directly is a newspaper feature.

That feature ran in The Leader-Union of Vandalia, Illinois, on July 20, 2023. It closed on the editor's favorite Nat, a niece of fifteen months in rural Sandoval.

A year later OK! Magazine UK posted its own greeting to Facebook, on July 20 again. A local paper and a magazine's Facebook page are the whole documented life of the day.

TIMELINE

Timeline

A martyr's wife named Natalia

The name belongs to the wife of Saint Adrian of Nicomedia, a fourth-century martyr venerated in the Orthodox Church.

Natalie enters the federal data

The first year of Social Security's national name file lists five girls named Natalie, ranked 908th.

Natalia Zakharenko born in San Francisco

The future Natalie Wood was born on July 20, the same calendar date this observance now falls on.

The name more than doubles

American parents chose Natalie for 1,055 girls, up from 404 two years earlier.

An Illinois newspaper marks the day

The Leader-Union of Vandalia ran a July 20 feature on National Natalie Day, the earliest mention that can be dated.

OK! Magazine UK joins in

The magazine posted a National Natalie Day greeting to its Facebook followers on July 20.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Natalie Day

EVIDENCE

The birth files carry names or months, never both.

The Social Security file that records American given names reports a year of birth and nothing finer, so it cannot show whether anyone was born at Christmas. The federal birth file is the mirror image, carrying the month of birth and no given names at all.

FAMILY

The older form kept a trace the English one lost

Wikidata lists 2,368 people named Natalia with a full date of birth. Fifteen of them were born on Christmas Day, roughly twice the rate for ordinary names.

CUSTOM

Marking a person on a named day is not an internet invention

Sweden's Institute for Language and Folklore traces the personal names in almanacs to the medieval habit of assigning a saint to each day of the calendar. People baptized with a saint's name were then marked on that saint's day, which is how name days began.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Natalie Day by the Numbers

379,062
US girls named Natalie since 1880
146
Straight years inside the US top 1000
10,951
US girls given the name in 2006, its peak
13th
Best US rank for the name, reached in 2008
89th
US rank for the name in 2025

GOOD TO KNOW

National Natalie Day Around the World

Sweden

the Swedish Academy's own almanac gives Natalia and Natalie 29 December, four days after Christmas

Estonia

the name day lands on 25 December, Christmas Day itself

Norway

27 December, still inside the Christmas week

Austria

two dates rather than one, 1 December and 27 July

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Natalie Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Open the Swedish Academy's name list

The academy publishes the whole almanac name list, searchable one letter at a time. Load the N page and see which day it hands every Natalie in Sweden.

READ

Read the etymology entry end to end

It runs only a few lines and it settles the meaning for good. The Online Etymology Dictionary entry also links straight across to the related names.

WATCH

Watch a Natalie Wood picture

Pick one from the middle of the 1950s rather than a later title. Those are the years the American birth record started to move.

PULL

Pull the raw name data yourself

The Social Security Administration publishes the full national name files, not just the top 1000. Every name given to at least five American babies in a year is in there, back to 1880.

SEND

Send the Natalie you know a note

A name day asks for nothing more elaborate than that. This one carries no ceremony, so the message is the whole observance.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Natalie Day?

1 / 8

What does the name Natalie literally mean?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance with no legal standing found, so schools, banks and offices keep normal hours.

COLOPHON

Sources

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

13sources
9primary records
5independently dated
Primary records
Social Security Administration2026
Popular Baby Names: Beyond the Top 1000 Names
Every US given name with at least five births a year, from 1880 on.
View source
Svenska Akademien
Akademialmanackan: the almanac name list
The Swedish Academy's own list of which name falls on which almanac day.
View source
Institute for Language and Folklore
Namnsdagar i almanackan
Sweden's language institute on how saints' days became almanac name days.
View source
National Center for Health Statistics2024
User Guide to the 2024 Natality Public Use File
Record layout of the US public birth file, with birth month and no given names.
View source
Wikidata
Wikidata Query Service
Public query endpoint holding given names and dates of birth for people with entries.
View source
Federal Register
Federal Register documents search API
Full-text index of every document published in the Federal Register.
View source
Natalie Wood Estate
The Woman
The estate's account of her birth name, her parents and her daughters.
View source
Hollywood Walk of Fame
Natalie Wood
Star record giving her birth date and birthplace, and her 1987 ceremony.
View source
OK! Magazine UK2024-07
It's National Natalie Day!
A UK magazine marking the day to its followers in July 2024.
View source
Additional coverage
Online Etymology Dictionary
Natalie
Traces the name to Church Latin Natalia and to (dies) natalis, Christmas Day.
View source
Online Etymology Dictionary
Noel
Traces Noel to the same Latin phrase, natalis (dies), for the birthday of Christ.
View source
Behind the Name2026-05
Meaning, origin and history of the name Natalie
Saint Natalia, the name's Eastern Christian usage, and its almanac name days.
View source
The Leader-Union2023-07
July 20 is National Natalie Day
A Vandalia, Illinois newspaper feature marking the day in July 2023.
View source
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