15 Fun Facts About Friday

Friday is named after a Norse goddess, is the holiest day of the week for Muslims, gave us the most famous unlucky date in the calendar and, for most of us, marks the start of the weekend. Here are 15 fun facts about Friday, perfect for brightening up the end of the working week.

Friday at a glance

Named after: Frigg, the Norse goddess, in Old English “Frīgedæg”
In French, Spanish and Italian: named after Venus (vendredi, viernes, venerdì)
Unluckiest Friday: Friday the 13th, which happens one to three times every year
Holy day: Good Friday for Christians, and every Friday (Jumu’ah) for Muslims

1Friday is named after a goddess.

The English word comes from the Old English Frīgedæg, meaning “Frigg’s day”. Frigg was the wife of Odin, the chief of the Norse gods, and a goddess of marriage and the home. The German Freitag and Dutch vrijdag come from the same root.

2Scholars still argue over which goddess it was.

Some say Friday is really named after Freya, the Norse goddess of love and fertility, rather than Frigg. The two goddesses are so similar that many experts think they may once have been the same figure.

3The Romans named it after Venus.

To the Romans, Friday was dies Veneris, “the day of Venus”, the goddess of love. That is why it is vendredi in French, viernes in Spanish and venerdì in Italian. When Germanic peoples adopted the Roman week, they swapped Venus for their own goddess of love, which is how we ended up with Frigg.

4Good Friday marks the crucifixion.

For Christians, Good Friday is the day Jesus was crucified, two days before Easter Sunday, when they celebrate his resurrection. The “good” probably comes from an old meaning of the word: holy. In Britain it is also the traditional day for eating hot cross buns.

5Friday is the holiest day of the week in Islam.

Muslims gather at midday on Fridays for Jumu’ah, the weekly congregational prayer and sermon. That is why Friday is part of the weekend in many Muslim-majority countries, from Saudi Arabia to Bangladesh.

6Friday the 13th has its own phobia.

Fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskevidekatriaphobia, from the Greek words for Friday and thirteen. There is also a shorter version, friggatriskaidekaphobia, named after Frigg. Every year has at least one Friday the 13th, and never more than three.

7The Friday the 13th superstition is surprisingly modern.

Friday and the number 13 were each considered unlucky for centuries, but there is little sign of them being combined before the late 1800s. A 1907 novel called Friday, the Thirteenth helped make the idea popular. The story linking it to the arrest of the Knights Templar on Friday 13 October 1307 is a much later invention.

8Sailors once refused to set sail on a Friday.

Many sailors believed starting a voyage on a Friday was asking for trouble. There’s a popular tale that the Royal Navy built a ship called HMS Friday, launched it on a Friday, and it vanished on its first voyage. It’s a great story, but there is no record of any such ship.

9A horror franchise made the date famous.

The 1980 slasher film Friday the 13th was a low-budget hit that spawned one of the longest-running horror series ever, with 12 films. Surprisingly, Jason Voorhees isn’t the killer in the first film, and he didn’t put on his famous hockey mask until the third.

10“Man Friday” comes from Robinson Crusoe.

In Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe, the stranded hero names his companion Friday after the day of the week they meet. The phrases “man Friday” and “girl Friday”, meaning a loyal helper or assistant, come from the book.

11Black Friday got its name from traffic jams.

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving in the United States. The name is usually traced to police in Philadelphia in the 1950s and 1960s, who used it to describe the chaos of shoppers and traffic. The sales spread to the UK in the early 2010s.

12Dress-down Friday started in Hawaii.

Casual Fridays are usually traced to “Aloha Friday”, a 1960s campaign in Hawaii encouraging office workers to wear Hawaiian shirts at the end of the week, partly to help the local garment industry. The idea spread to offices around the world.

13In Thailand, Friday is light blue.

Each day of the week has its own colour in Thai tradition, and Friday’s is light blue. Thai people often wear the colour of the day they were born, and the colours appear on everything from flags to clothing on royal occasions.

14Fridays became a day of climate protest.

In August 2018, 15-year-old Greta Thunberg began skipping school on Fridays to protest outside the Swedish parliament. Her strike grew into Fridays for Future, a movement that has drawn millions of young people onto the streets around the world.

15That Friday feeling has a name.

“Thank God It’s Friday”, or TGIF, has been around for decades. It gave its name to the TGI Fridays restaurant chain, founded in New York in 1965, while Channel 4’s 1990s show TFI Friday, hosted by Chris Evans, used a cheekier version.

FAQs about Friday

Why is it called Friday?

It comes from the Old English Frīgedæg, “Frigg’s day”, after the Norse goddess Frigg, the wife of Odin.

Is Friday the 13th really unlucky?

There’s no good evidence that it is. A 2008 study by the Dutch Centre for Insurance Statistics found slightly fewer accidents, fires and thefts on Friday the 13th than on other Fridays, possibly because people are more careful.

Why is Good Friday called “good”?

Most likely because “good” once meant “holy” in English. In some other languages it is called “Holy Friday” or “Great Friday”.

What colour is Friday?

In Thailand, where each day has a colour, Friday is light blue.

Explore more: facts about Mondays, facts about Tuesdays and more days of the week.

Do you know any fun facts about Friday? Share them in the comments below!