On 10 August 2002, the government of Turkmenistan adopted a law to rename all the months and most of the days of the week.
The names were chosen according to Turkmen national symbols, as described in the Ruhnama, a book written by Saparmurat Niyazov, Turkmenistan's first and only president for life.
According to Arto Halonen's documentary film The Shadow of the Holy Book, Turkish businessman Ahmet Çalık came up with the idea to rename the months, as he was trying to befriend Niyazov to expand his business in the country.
On 23 April 2008 it was reported that the cabinet of ministers of Turkmenistan discussed restoring the old names of the months and days of week.
[1] The original Roman calendar month names were borrowed from Russian.