We're Celebrating Summer - The Season & The Name!

Summer is here (for now) so we’re celebrating the season and the name! Read on for fascinating seasonal facts and to find out how popular Summer really is amongst our customers.

Celebrating Summer With Stikins ® Name Labels

While we’ve seen plenty of orders for seasonal names, Summer has always been the most popular. Of over 500 seasonal namesakes printed onto our name labels, 83% were “Summer” followed by “Autumn” (14%) and “Winter” (3%).

Sadly no one has opted for “Spring” yet but we’re perennially optimistic that we might see the full set one year!

We also get plenty of “sunny” alternatives that remind us of summer – like Sol, Sunny, Sunnie, Sun, Sunday, and Sunshine!

Here are some of our favourite facts about our most popular seasonal namesake:

• One of the earliest uses of “summer” appears in a document dating back to 825. It comes from the Old English sumor, which is possibly related to a Proto-Indo-European word sem meaning together / one.
• There are different ways of marking “summer”. In the Northern hemisphere, meteorological summer is 1^st June to 31^st August, while solar and Celtic summers are 1^st May to 31^st. Celtic communities marked changing seasons with festivals; summer began with Beltane and finished with Lughnasadh, which welcomed the harvest season.
• Astronomical summer is determined by the summer solstice and autumn equinox in each hemisphere. Solstices mark when the Earth’s axis is most or least inclined towards the sun, creating the longest and shortest days. They happen in June and December. Equinoxes mark when day and night are roughly equal. They happen in September and March. Northern hemisphere summer solstices occur in June and autumn equinoxes in September. Southern hemisphere summer solstices fall in December and autumn equinoxes in March.
• You might think summer is hot because Earth is closer to the sun. While Earth’s axis is tilted towards the sun in June, Earth is actually heading for its “aphelion”. This is the moment in its orbit when it is farthest from the sun. This currently happens about two weeks after the northern hemisphere’s summer solstice.
• Northern hemisphere summers are warmer and longer than southern ones. This is because it contains larger land masses (which heat more easily than seas) and because Earth’s speed changes during its orbit around the sun. Earth moves faster when it is closer to the sun. This means it takes less time to move from December solstice to March equinox (89 days) compared with June solstice to September equinox (93 days).
• Our summer months are June, July, and August and their names come from Roman Calendars. Some believe June (Iunius) was named for Juno (Queen of the Roman Gods), while July (Iulius) and August (Augustus) were named for Julius Caesar and Emperor Augustus.
• The “dog days of summer” are named for Sirius (the Dog Star) in the constellation Canis Major (Greater Dog). Sirius is an extremely bright star. During the northern hemisphere’s summer, it rises above the horizon just before the sun. Ancient Greeks believed that Sirius added to the sun’s heat and caused the hottest (and most uncomfortable) part of summer. They blamed the star for drought, thunderstorms, lethargy, fever, mad dogs, and bad luck. “Dog days” comes from the Latin dies caniculares (“the puppy days”) and Sirius comes from the ancient Greek Seirios, which means glowing or scorcher.
• The UK is more likely to have thunderstorms in summer than during any other season. Almost all UK records for most rainfall in a short duration (between 5 to 155 minutes) were set in summer months. For the last 158 years, summer has only been the driest month 52 times. Summer has been wetter than autumn 17 times, winter 26 times, and spring 92 times! It’s even been the wettest season of the year 9 times!

Order Your Summer Name Labels Now

We designed our name labels to stick on and stay on – all summer long and beyond! Our super strong adhesive creates adhesive bonds that remain firmly stuck – through day to day wear and repeat trips through the washing machine. The print is also summer proof because we use a speciality printing ink that is solvent resistant. This means it can withstand exposure to solvents, including ingredients in some sun creams that can cause inks to disintegrate.

This means your name labels will remain clear, legible, and firmly in place all year round.

You can order Stikins ® name labels online or by phone. Simply let us know how many you want and what you need printing. We print and post name labels Monday to Friday, up to 3pm. This means we will despatch your order on the same or next working day.

Standard delivery is free and uses Royal Mail’s first class service.

For more information about our name labels, check out our Label Uses and About Our Name Labels pages.