being Australian we usually associate names like black with days to mark a day of a massive bush fire (wild fire) for example Black Saturday that killed 170 people and destroyed 2000 homes. But i have been seeing Black friday, black friday everywhere, i keep thinking its some type of dark day. Buts it is shopping. 

Why is it called Black friday. Our big shopping day is called Boxing day (day after chirstmas). Is it because like people died in an shopping mall on this day or something 

Black Friday is supposedly (not sure how true this is) the day that retailers finally go from being in the red (having lost money) for the calanday year, to finally breaking into the black (posting a profit).

Obviously not every retailer would finally post a profit on that day, but one retailer probably did post a profit that day and they decided to make a retail sale out of it.

As for people dieing, it does happen. I've heard of tramplings at malls that open really early in the morning and too many people are crammed against the front doors. You can youtube some videos and it is pretty crazy.

It's the day we all dress up in black to mourn the demise of our hard earned cash

It's the start of the Holiday shopping season; the Friday after Thanksgiving.

I just read a bit more about Black Friday on Wiki and I guess the name may have originated in Philadelphia due to high auto and pedestrian traffic.

JANUARY 1966 -- "Black Friday" is the name which the Philadelphia Police Department has given to the Friday following Thanksgiving Day. It is not a term of endearment to them. "Black Friday" officially opens the Christmas shopping season in center city, and it usually brings massive traffic jams and over-crowded sidewalks as the downtown stores are mobbed from opening to closing.

And later they used the definition I posted above (also supposedly originated from Philly)

Also interesting, supposedly the term became more popular around the US back near 2000 and prior to that it was more of an east coast thing. I wouldn't know though because I've always known about Black Friday probably because we always went down to Philly for Thanksgiving.

In the Netherlands we know Black Friday as the day on which there are massive traffic jams on the French highways on our ways to our vacation.

It's the day PS2/Xbox classic fps "Black" hit the market.  The game was so good that the day became known as  "Black Friday".

I also have more totally bullshit answers that involve Lewis Black, the music group Blackstreet, the Black Stallion, Michael Ian Black, and Lou Ferigno.  I'm a wealth of false information.

I think you're completely fabricating your deep knowledge of false information.

Pfft, typical.

No, it's true!  Ask me anything and I'll give you the wrong answer!

reported