掲示板 Forums - Old (traditonal) names of months and specific days

Now months have numbers in japanese but in many countries that officialy use only numbers for naming months they have old traditional names for each month and sometimes for specyfic day (in example full moon days have they own names). These names are often not used officialy anymore but they exist (usualy remembered as a fun fact). Do months had names in Japan in the past?

Fun fact. In Poland, astronomy fans sometimes use names for full moon (they are borrowed from other countries). The full moon in February is named Snow Moon. I remembered it becouse of Word Garden.

are the names often used? most of my textbooks (have only very basic ones) do not tell about it

Found these in Wiktionary:

睦月, 如月, 弥生, 卯月, 皐月, 水無月, 文月, 葉月, 長月, 神無月, 霜月, 師走

Random note, but while names like Snow Moon became are a part of American folklore, they are a relatively recent invention from around 18th c. Many are wild interpretations of some Native American appellations; others are reportedly of Celtic or Old English origin. They may be used by some astronomy enthusiasts because they know them from English-language sources, but they aren't something general public in Poland would know or use.

Names of months are a fascinating subject in general. English ended up just using Latin names for months of Roman calendar and completely forgetting any pre-existing names for months of earlier ways of reckoning of time. How much cooler would it be to have glory-month rather than dedicating it to the Roman god of war Mars?
Polish uses a mix of native Slavic names and Roman ones. But because the Slavic ones are older than the Roman calendar, it doesn't even agree with neighbouring languages on them: e.g. Polish kwiecień is April, but Czech cognate květen is May. Croatian kept most of Slavic names, but they are off by one in comparison to other Slavic languages.
And Japanese also had some earlier names, often related to natural phenomena (compare Slavic травень with Japanese 弥生). At least some spellings borrowed from Chinese, but etymology not always quite obvious.

Today, the old names of lunar months that ポールおじちゃん listed are sometimes used for Gregorian months which are about a month off within the year, in names of some events (remapped to modern calendar in various ways), or as a slightly more generic 季語 often understood through their etymology, e.g. 卯月 as ‘the month of deutzia flowers’ rather than for an exact month of the calendar. They are also used in some proper names, often giving particularly 和風 feel to them. For example, navy or history geeks (or fans of games like Kantai Collection or Azur Lane) will certainly recognize some of these month names as the names of Japanese warships!

Fwiw I hate the modern Japanese words for months いちがつ, にがつ etc. I was sad to learn these are relatively modern replacements for the traditional names for months.