why is october the tenth month of the year and not the eighth?

A couple answers here came close, but no one has got the answer exactly right yet.

People mistakenly believe that July and August were ADDED to the Roman calendar in honor of Julius and Augustus Caesar. What happened was that the names of the fifth month, Quintilius, and the sixth month, Sextilius, were CHANGED to Iulius and Augustus to honor the Caesars.

The original Roman calendar had just 10 months, starting with Martius (became March), and then after December came an indeterminate "winter period" of about 61 days that were not assigned to any month. The original months were: Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Iunius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September (7th), October (8th), November (9th) and December (10th). Note that the Latin names for the later months actually do correspond with their numbered positions.

The last two months added to the Roman Calendar were Ianuarius (now January) and Februarius (now February). This pushed all the other months forward two numbers when later people came to regard January as the "First" month. Probably because of the winter solstice, January became regarded as a time of "renewal" for the sun, and hence the start of a new solar cycle.

September then became the 9th month, October the 10th, and so on, but the original names remained, without matching up with the number their name was first based on.

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RE:

why is october the tenth month of the year and not the eighth?

The prefix oct- generally refers to the number eight, so why is october the tenth month?

Also, sept- refers to seven, yet september is the ninth month

And nueve and nov- are kind of similar, so I would guess that november should be the ninth, while its the eleventh. Dec- refers to ten and...

October is not the eighth month because the ancient Romans inserted two months in the middle of the year to correct the calendar. This is what is now known as the Julian calendar. Because July for Julius Caesar and August for Augustus Caesar were added between June and September. Sept from 7th, Oct from 8th, Nov from 9th and Dec from 10th each got moved forward two places. Take note that out of all calendar corrections, the weekly cycle has never changed, which is why the seventh day of the week from sundown Friday to Sundown Saturday is still regarded as the Bible Sabbath and has been kept by the Jews since ancient times up to today

If you have a look at the Persian calender, you will find the answer. In the Persian calender which is still in use in Iran and some other countries, the first day of the is march 21st, which is in fact the first day of the spring. Also the birthday of Mithra is December 25, in which Romans adopted as the birthday of the Christ. This led them to start their calender from January. ٔAlso think about February. It is reasonable that in a leap year, we add a day to the "last months" of a the year. As in Persian calendar, Esfand is the 12th month of the year, 29 days in ordinary years and 30 days in leap years. Why should one change the second month of the year in case of leap years?!

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The Roman calendar only had 10 months, with October being the eighth.

I've heard a few reasons why it's this way. Who knows what the real reason is, but here are a few theories:

- because March used to be the first month of the year. If this is true, then October would have been the 8th month.

- because Julius Caeser and Augusta added months (July and August) that are named after them which slid October from the 8th month to the 10th month

probably has to do with rome. Most of the months are named after roman emperors. July-Julius Ceasar August-Augustus October-Octavius or Octavian i am not to sure January- Janus (God not emperor) June Juno stuff like that i guess

I think its because esteemed Roman emperors had months added in their honour after the calendar was established. Julius Caesar had July named after him and Augustus had August named after him. I guess the calendar had 10 months before that so the "sept" and "oct" parts would have made sense.

Prior to the time of the Roman Emperors Caesar, September, October, etc, were the seventh through tenth months of the calendar. Julius Caesar decided to insert a month before September and name it after himself: Julius, which became July. Augustus Caesar subsequently did the same thing (Augustus, i.e. August).

The July and August insertion because of the czars is correct. It might also be noted that they are the only two months, back to back, in a calendar year that have 31 days. The others alternate between 31 and a lower number.