It is the month of June, The month of leaves and roses...

It is the month of June, The month of leaves and roses, When pleasant sights salute the eyes and pleasant scents the noses. (Nathaniel Parker Willis).

June....Juno: yes, in a handful of past posts I've confidently written that the month of June was named in honour of goddess Juno; such archived posts can be accessed via "Juno" in the Label Cloud in the sidebar. I've lately stumbled across evidence that I (and countless other writers, bloggers and internet websites) could be mistaken in this supposition. An excerpt from a book The Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic by William Warde Fowler throws doubt on the June/Juno theory. The author includes a passage, in Latin, from Macrobius which he claims shows that Roman scholars were "at sea" as to the answer on whether the months of May and June were named after deities in the same way that March was certainly named in honour of Mars, god of war. There's more detail on the May/Maia question, which I'll not include here. As for June/Juno:

One source giving a hint that June/Juno might be questionable is Encyclopedia Mythica, where it is stated:

June
The fourth month [In ancient Rome the year began in March] was named in honor of Juno. However, the name might also come from iuniores (young men; juniors) as opposed to maiores (grown men; majors) for May, the two months being dedicated to young and old men.

Sunday Supplement ~~ MAY

Of our 12 calendar months, four are named for Roman or Greek deities (Janus, Mars, Maia, Juno); two for Roman rulers (Julius Caesar, Augustus Caesar); four numerical, according to ancient calendars the 7th to 10th months (Septem, Octem, Novem, Decem); and two represent the essence of the months in question: February, last month of the Roman calendar, a month of purification and atonement, from the Latin word februa, to cleanse. April isn't quite as clear - could come from the Latin word aperio, to open (as in buds opening because this is when they do so); or April could be another month named for a goddess - Aphrodite.

Current month, MAY, named (according to most sources) for Maia, goddess of spring and one of the mythical Seven Sisters of the Pleiades, a star cluster 400 light years distant from Earth in the constellation of Taurus. Maia, eldest of the seven sisters, became a lover of Zeus and brought forth Hermes (aka Mercury). Those Greeks certainly had vivid imaginations!

Pleiades in Greek mythology were the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione, daughter of Oceanus. They were Electra, Maia, Taygete, Alcyone, Celaeno, Sterope, and Merope. After their death, or metamorphosis to doves (according to which myth one prefers), they were transformed into stars, and pursued across the sky by Orion, the constellation.



There are alternative theories about the origin of MAY's name, involving a different goddess, or that the name comes from the Latin maiores = elders, because the month might have been a time when senior citizens were honored. In which case June, the next month, Junius, could have been a time for honoring the young, the juniors: iuniores. That theory would dispense with two deities, and I'd guess that it's not the origin of MAY.