In the Czech Republic, you have a birthday AND a name day (svatek). People text you happy name day and you get small gifts and so on from friends and relatives. It's a neat idea really. If you buy a Czech diary, it lists the 'name' for each day of the year so everyone knows the calendar of name days.

Now, there is another side to this becuase the Czech's essentially have a limited number of names to chose from for their children. After all, there are only 365 days in a year and you want your child to have a name day right? This means that there isn't the variation in first names here like there is in the USA for example. You pick your kid's name from the official list of names with a name day.

For us foreigners it's also problemmatic. I get to buy gifts for my Czech friends here on their name day but I don't have one - my name 'Gary' isn't in the calendar..... aghhhhh.

This tradition also applies to pet names I recently discovered. I was shown the official dog name calendar by my girlffriend becuase lo and behold.... dog's called 'Gary' do have a name day... enough said?

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