Imieniny. I’m sure that anyone who has spent more than five minutes (ok, five days) in Poland is familiar, even if only vaguely, with this glorious occasion. The custom of celebrating namedays (imieniny) is not unique to Poland (some other countries do it, too), but I think only in Poland imieniny are taken so seriously.

But first things first. Yes, imieniny “are”. It’s a plural noun. Only.

• imieniny (noun, plural, non-personal) – nameday

So in Polish, whether you are talking about one particular nameday, or several, it’s always the same – imieniny. Same with “urodziny” (birthday) – another one of those plural only nouns.

But why am I talking about namedays all of a sudden? I was caught totally off guard by one this week. You see, my family doesn’t celebrate namedays. Never have. I don’t even know when my nameday is. And as far as I can remember, no one ever, not even my very traditional grandmas obchodziły imieniny (celebrated namedays). We only did birthdays (urodziny) and that was it. And once you reach a certain age, you don’t even want to do that, especially if you’re a woman.

But what was I talking about? Ah yes, caught off guard by imieniny.

My friend called me up bright and early on Monday and the conversation went more or less like this:

F: What time can we expect you?
A: Huh?
F: I said, “What time are you coming over?” And you eat dairy products, right?
A: Huh?
F: OK, in that case, come at 6PM, and you’ll get some dinner too.
A: Errrr… you know what? I am somewhere between Toruń and Łódź now stuck in traffic and I don’t…
F: You FORGOT!!!
A: Oh no… I didn’t…
F: You forgot about my imieniny AGAIN!

Of course, she was right. I did forget. Most of my friends gave up a long time ago and don’t even bother to notify me about their nameday parties. This particular friend hopes that eventually I will learn, or buy a better wall calendar (the most popular names are listed under the appropriate days).

But this nameday tradition is not nearly as uniform as some would like to think. I read somewhere that younger people can’t be bothered with namedays and of course I wanted to see if this was indeed true. So today, while walking across the Technical University campus (Politechnika) I thought it would be fun to find out what college age kids think of namedays.

The result was an astounding “huh?” Out of the 18 people asked, 15 said “Imieniny? That’s for old folks.” Seven had no idea when their namedays were. And two turned out to be exchange students from Azerbaijan who thought I was after them because they overstayed their visas – they somehow managed to misunderstand me that badly.

So, what’s the deal with imieniny? Is it really only for old folks who are too afraid to admit how old they are (and hence gave up on celebrating birthdays a long time ago)?

The whole idea of imieniny started a long time ago in the Middle Ages. Of course back then, it was not called that. Rather, it was a celebratory feast for a particular saint on a particular day. The church promoted those feasts and actually preferred them over birthdays, because birthday celebrations were seen as pagan. But then, somewhere along the way, the feasts disappeared and what we have now are imieniny parties instead of religious occasions.

In Poland imieniny are big business (the young ones at Politechnika and their answers notwithstanding) and are celebrated just like birthdays – sans the candles, of course. There are big dinners, cakes, flowers and gifts (and don’t forget about greeting cards!).

So maybe by not celebrating my own nameday I am missing out? But then again, as a solenizant (the one whose nameday is celebrated) it would be me preparing that dinner and baking those cakes… Hmmm… Maybe I’ll pass.

Here’s something to remember:

• imieniny – nameday –> solenizant – person whose nameday is celebrated
• urodziny – birthday –> jubilat – person whose anniversary (including a birthday) is celebrated

And a general nameday greeting:

• Wszystkiego najlepszego z okazji imienin! – Best wishes on your nameday!