I guess today I'm going to continue my monthly excursion into how the months got their names.  Since it's now May, that's the month I'm going to learn about.  I don't know this one, but since a lot of them seem to be Roman gods that's what I'm going to venture a guess is the origin before I actually go find out.  Either that or someone want to be really permissive this month.  Like, yes you may!  All right, I'm going to go look up the answer to this.  Be right back.

Okay, here's what I learned.  It comes from a Latin word and it's named after a goddess, but it's actually a Greek goddess, Maia who was one of the Pleiades, who were the companions of Artemis, the goddess of the hunt.  I know of the Pleiades as a group of several stars you can see in the night sky that form a constellation that looks kind of like a wine glass.  Maia was also apparently the mother of Hermes, the messenger god.  The original old English name for May was Maius, which was apparently taken from the Latin term Maius mensis, which literally means Maia's month.  

In another wrinkle apparently the Romans actually had a different goddess who was also named Maia Majesta who was a goddess of fertility and spring, which is actually pretty appropriate for the month of May.  From what I understand though it's actually the Greek one who its named after but there was probably some confusion between the two goddesses somewhere along the way.  

All right, there's my learning for the day.  Until next month when I'll look into the origins of June.