Arabic names of Gregorian months

The Arabic names of the months of the Gregorian calendar are usually phonetic Arabic pronunciations of the corresponding month names used in European languages, or in the case of the Gulf Countries and Jordan, their numbers. A main regional exception is the Assyrian calendar names used in Iraq and the Levant, whose month names are inherited via Classical Arabic from the Babylonian and Aramaic lunisolar calendars and correspond to roughly the same time of year.

Though the lunar Hijri calendar and solar Hijri calendar are prominent in the Middle East, the Gregorian calendar is and has been used in nearly all the countries of the Arab world, in many places long before European occupation. All Arab states use the Gregorian calendar for civil purposes. The names of the Gregorian months as used in Egypt, Sudan, and Yemen are widely regarded as standard across the Arab world, although their Classical Arabic names are often used alongside them. In other Arab countries, some modification or actual changes in naming or pronunciation of months are observed.

Iraq and the Levant

These names are used primarily in Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine.

Classical Arabic inherited the Aramaic names from the Babylonian and Assyrian calendars, which are lunisolar. Although the Arabic names are cognate, they do not refer to the lunar months, but rather name the Julian calendar months (and also Gregorian) of the Greek Orthodox liturgical calendar, which serves as a guide post for the old agricultural calendar. Nine of these names were also used in the Ottoman Turkish calendar, of which five remain in use in the modern Turkish calendar.