Names for days of the week and their meaning in Polish

Polish week consist of:

poniedziałek(monday)
wtorek (tuesday)
środa (wednesday)
czwartek (thursday)
piątek (friday)
sobota (saturday)
niedziela (sunday)

I haven't check it yet in any serious source but I'm sure I'm right with my opinion: Polish names for days of the week are all of Christian origin.

In pagan Roman week days ware named from Roman gods- for example "dies Solis"- "the day of the Sun". Nation that later have developed from the German community (Goths, Angles, Saxons, Vandals etc.) put their own gods in this scheme. So Sunday is day of Sun, Wednesday is of Wodan and so on. Latin Christian days of the week are Dominica (Sunday, literally "Lord's day"), feria secunda, feria tertia, feria quarta, feria quinta, feria sexta (the second day-after the Sunday since Sunday is beginning of Christian week, the third day and so on...) and Sabbatum which means Sabbath. Polish days names don,t deal with Slavic deities. Niedziela is "the day of not working" which is a Christian custom. Poniedziałek is "the day after the Sunday", wtorek mean "the second day", środa- "the middle day", czwartek- "the forth day" piątek- "the fifth day", sobota is corrupted form of Latin Sabbatum. So, the adaptation of Christain Latin system is base for Polish names of days of the week.

But what about other Slavic and non Slavic nomenclatures? Any idea?

Monday Anglo-Saxon monandaeg, "the moon's day"
Tuesday named after the Norse god Tyr.
Wednesday named after Wodan (Odin), another Germanic god.
Thursday named after the Norse god Thor
Friday named after the Norse goddess Frigg.
Saturday (Latin: dies Saturni) "Saturn's Day"
Sunday (Latin dies solis, meaning) "sun's day" the name of a pagan Roman holiday.

poniedzielek - (po niedzieli) a day after Sunday (niedziela); Niedziela as a very important day of a week for Christans and Jews;
wtorek -wtóry, means drugi (second); means a second day of a week;
środa - is a middle (środek) of a week;
czwartek - czwarty (four) day of a week;
piątek - piąty (five) day of a week;
sobota - comes from Shabbat, a day of a rest in Judaism;
niedziela - a day when you don't do anything ('nie działa'). From the New Testament's point of view.

The Babylonians marked time with lunar months. They proscribed some activities during several days of the month, particularly the

first -- the first visible crecent,
seventh -- the waxing half moon,
fourteenth -- the full moon,
nineteenth -- dedicated to an offended goddess,
twenty-first -- the waning half moon,
twenty-eigth -- the last visible crecent,
twenty-nineth -- the invisible moon, and
thirtieth (possibly) -- the invisible moon.

The major periods are seven days, 1/4 month, long. This seven-day period was later regularized and disassociated from the lunar month to become our seven-day week.

It is very much the same in Russian too except that Sunday is translated as Voskrisjenie meaning the resurection.

I'm wondering how Polish deals with (or perhaps rather, dealt with) eves.

Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, Halloween (All Hallows' (Saints') Eve) and so on.
I'm not sure, but I think the eve is the same as evening, and that the day was once reckoned to start at sunset rather than midnight.

what do you mean 'deal with'?
the word (direct translation) is 'wigilia' and is used only for Christmas Eve in Poland.
look here

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigilia

Did the day once start at a different time of day?
Some cultures used sunrise, sunset, maybe even midday?

Is there a word that sometimes means the day or evening before something?

yes, that's exactly 'wigilia'
but again, it is used now only to indicate Christmas Eve
it used to be used as 'the evening before' but long long time ago

no such word that I know of in modern Polish

Christmas Eve is Wigilia but you could say wieczór (evening) Wigilijny or wieczerza Wigilijna, and New Years Eve is Sylwester lol. Halloween is Halloween. Wigilia comes from 'night guard' in Latin, but since the Roman Catholic church started using the word Wigilia it is more like awaiting for Jesus to come. And as for Sylweser, it is Sylvester's names day on the 31st of Dec.

The only two I can think of is what JustysiaS said


And Noc Kupały also called (Nocą Kupalną, Kupalnocką lub Nocą Świętojańską czy też potocznie Sobótką lub Sobótkami) Ancient slavic holiday for summer solstice

wigilia - a day preceding another day, usually a holiday. For instance "wigilia Nowego Roku" or "wigilia Bozego Narodzenia"
Wigilia - a day preceding Christmas Day, or a supper on the eve of Chritsmas Day.

The first meaning of the word doesn't seem to be that popular anymore, and may not be correctly understood by native Poles. The immediate association is rather with Christmas Eve.

At home during the evening of Wigilia, we always eat fish-pstrąg. This is a strong Polish tradition.

That is mostly typical of the Southern mountain region of Poland. The rest, in the 20th Century (and I hear now too) eat carp.

Niedziela comes from the old Polish word "dzielać", which means "to work". Hence "nie dzielaj" means "don't work".