Named decem for tenth, since it was the tenth month in the Roman calendar (March was the first).

Names of the Month in Various Cultures
Wintermaand, the winter month (Holland), Rhagfyr, "before the shortest day" (Welsh), an Dudlachd, the darkness (Scots Gaelic), Mi na Nollag, the month of Christmas (Irish Gaelic), Giuli, the month of Yule (Anglo-Saxon)

From Blackburn, Bonnie & Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press 1999
Kightly, Charles, The Perpetual Almanack of Folklore, Thames & Hudson 1987

Names of the Month to the Northern Tribes
Aleuts: sea-lion month
Koryak (north of Kamchatka): cold winds month or snowstorm month
Ugric Ostiaks: Month in which men go on horseback (the month before as walking month because men could still walk on the snow)
Yeneseik Ostiaks: Month when the earth greezes
Tatars: Mottled month (bare patches appear among the snow)
Karagasses: Month of the long rest (taken during the short days)
Buriats: When aftermath comes, Nesting month
Ostiak Samoyeds: Midwinter month
Yurak Samoyeds: Calm month (no storms)
Yakuts: Month in which the ice floats away
Eskimos: Time of the drum (the winter festival begins)
Lower Yukon delta: Time of musk rats
Tlinkit, Wrangell, AK: Ground hog mother's moon

From Blackburn, Bonnie & Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press 1999
Nilsson, Martin P, Primitive Time-Reckoning, Oxford University Press 1920

Popular Months of the European Peoples
Macedonia: St Nicholas (from his feast on the 6th)
Basque: binding up (of vegetation?)
Lithuania: wolf month or Christmas
Czechoslovakia: wolf month
Croatia: month of clods
Sebia: increasing daylight
Ruthenia: month of the snowstorm
Bulgaria: kindling of the wheel
Germany: fourth autumn month, winter month, hard month, slaughtering month, month of bacon, wolf month, hare month, second winter
Anglo-Saxon: yule, midwinter
Iceland: yule month or ram month or the fat-sucker, month of the short days
Norway: Yule or time of the short days
Denmark: Yule
Lapland: Advent month, Yule month
Lapland: month when the male reindeer are powerless (the month before is rutting month), Advent month

Nilsson, Martin P, Primitive Time-Reckoning, Oxford University Press 1920

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