Samhain were also a big part of the festival and often involved nuts and apples. In the late 19th century, Sir John Rhys and Sir James Frazer suggested that it was the "Celtic New Year", and this view has been repeated by some other scholars. In the 9th century AD, the Western Christian church shifted the date of All Saints' Day to 1 November, while 2 November later became All Souls' Day. Over time, Samhain and All Saints'/All Souls' merged to create the modern Halloween. Historians have used the name 'Samhain' to refer to Gaelic 'Halloween' customs up until the 19th
Samhain century. Since the later 20th century, Celtic neopagans and Wiccans have observed Samhain, or something based on it, as a religious holiday. Neopagans in the Southern Hemisphere often celebrate Samhain at the other end of the year (about 1 May). In Modern Irish as well as Scottish Gaelic the name is . Older forms of the word include the Scottish Gaelic spellings and . In Manx Gaelic the name is . These are also the names of November in each language, shortened from "Mí na Samhna" (Irish), "Mì na Samhna" (Scottish Gaelic) and "Mee Houney" (Manx), meaning "month of Samhain".