Why is Good Friday called Good Friday?

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Article quality and SEO discussion

  • Multiple commenters describe the linked piece as “SEO slop”: repetitive headings, padded structure, heavy ads, and content that feels formulaic or AI-generated.
  • Some note that SEO-driven writing long predates LLMs, but now such filler also contaminates AI training data, potentially worsening future output.

Core etymology of “Good Friday”

  • The main linguistic point extracted: in older English, “good” can mean “holy,” so “Good Friday” ≈ “Holy Friday.”
  • Historical Catholic encyclopedias say the precise origin of “Good” is unclear; competing folk theories include “God’s Friday,” but modern references (e.g., Wikipedia) tend to reject that derivation.

Names in other languages

  • Many languages use “Holy Friday” or “Great Friday”:
    • French “Vendredi Saint,” Spanish “Viernes Santo,” Portuguese “Sexta-feira Santa,” Polish “Wielki Piątek,” Russian/Croatian equivalents of “Great Friday.”
    • Danish and other Scandinavian languages use “Long Friday,” originally referring to long services and fasting.
    • Some cultures say “Crucifixion Friday” explicitly.
  • English and German (“Karfreitag”) are outliers in terminology; “good” in English feels inconsistent next to “Holy Week.”

Easter, Passover, and pagan-origin debates

  • Extensive discussion challenges the popular claim that Easter is primarily a takeover of a pagan fertility feast (Eostre/Ishtar):
    • Only English/German use “Easter/Ostern”; most languages derive their term from Hebrew “Pesach” (Passover) or phrases like “Great Day” or “Resurrection.”
    • The core timing and theology are linked to Jewish Passover and the Paschal full moon, not to Germanic or Mesopotamian goddesses.
    • The Easter bunny and egg traditions are argued to be much later, mostly secular/folk additions with little solid evidence of ancient pagan continuity.

Religious meaning of “Good”

  • Several commenters argue the name is theologically paradoxical but intentional: the crucifixion is “good” because Christ’s suffering and death accomplish salvation, fulfilling the “Paschal lamb” imagery.
  • Others note that in practice the dominant visual symbol (a suffering Christ on the cross) can obscure this “good news” emphasis for many observers.

Miscellaneous

  • Side topics include stock markets being closed on Good Friday, national holiday practices, and complaints that the article page is nearly unusable without an ad blocker.