The 39th day of the year
Born on 8 February
Every 8 February birthday from 1920 to 2026 was Aquarius, in every time zone.
- Star sign
- AquariusAir, fixed, ruled by Saturn.
- Birthstone
- AmethystThe same as on the 1912 list.
- Birth flower
- Violet, PrimroseUsually taken today to mean faithfulness and young love.
- Most common weekdays
- Sunday and Wednesday16 times each between 1920 and 2026.
A Goat year in between
The new year has come on 8 February four times since 1920: in 1921, the Metal Rooster; 1940, the Metal Dragon; 1959, the Earth Pig; and 2016, the Fire Monkey. The next is 8 February 2035, the first day of the Wood Rabbit. 1921, 1940 and 1959 are nineteen years apart; after 1959 the series moved a day earlier, to 7 February in 1978 and 1997, and 2016 brought the new year back to 8 February.
The years around 2016 show how late in the window the new year can still be. In 2015 it did not come until 19 February, so 8 February 2015 belongs to the Wood Horse of 2014. A year later the same date was the Fire Monkey's first day, and the whole of the Wood Goat lay in between, from 19 February 2015 to 7 February 2016.
Of the 107 years from 1920 to 2026, 41 put 8 February before the new year and 66 on or after it. The sign was Aquarius all day in every one, everywhere.
Your year
Without JavaScript, the pages for each birth year give the generation and Chinese animal for a birth on 8 February in any year.
Which Chinese animal, by year
From 1920 to 2026 the lunar new year, reckoned in Beijing, came after 8 February in 41 of the 107 years, and in those years a birthday on it belonged to the animal of the year before; in the other 66 the new year had already begun. It was the first day of the new year itself in 1921, 1940, 1959 and 2016.
Shaded: 8 February came before that year's new year. Hatched: the new year began on 8 February. How the new year is found →
Which weekday 8 February falls on
Across the 107 years from 1920 to 2026, 8 February falls on every day of the week: Sunday 16, Wednesday 16, Tuesday 15, Thursday 15, Friday 15, Monday 15, Saturday 15.
Showing 8 February in the 36 most recent years. Every weekday →
How common a birthday 8 February is
In England and Wales, from 1995 to 2014, an average of 1,777 babies were born on 8 February in each year of the twenty, making it the 295th most common of the 366 dates, where 26 September came first with 1,974 and 26 December last with 1,359.
Office for National Statistics, How popular is your birthday? Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. What a ranking like this can and cannot say →
Born on 8 February
| Name | Years | Known for |
|---|---|---|
| Jules Verne | 1828–1905 | French writer |
| Dmitri Mendeleev | 1834–1907 | Russian chemist |
| John Ruskin | 1819–1900 | English writer and art critic |
| James Dean | 1931–1955 | American actor |
| Daniel Bernoulli | 1700–1782 | Swiss mathematician and physicist |
| Emanuel Swedenborg | 1688–1772 | Swedish 18th century scientist and theologian; born 8 February in the Gregorian calendar, 29 January in the Julian |
| Mauricio Macri | 1959– | president of Argentina from 2015 to 2019 |
| Jack Lemmon | 1925–2001 | American actor |
| Martin Buber | 1878–1965 | Austrian-Israeli philosopher |
| John Williams | 1932– | American composer and conductor |
| Constantine XI Palaiologos | 1404–1453 | last Byzantine emperor, from 1449 to 1453 |
| Franz Marc | 1880–1916 | German artist |
| Joseph Schumpeter | 1883–1950 | Austrian political economist |
| John Grisham | 1955– | American writer |
| Benigno Aquino III | 1960–2021 | president of the Philippines from 2010 to 2016 |
| Nick Nolte | 1941– | American actor |
| Hristo Stoichkov | 1966– | Bulgarian footballer and manager |
| Joshua Kimmich | 1995– | German association football player |
Died on 8 February
| Name | Years | Known for |
|---|---|---|
| Peter the Great | 1672–1725 | Tsar of Russia from 1682 and Emperor of Russia from 1721 to 1725 |
| John von Neumann | 1903–1957 | Hungarian and American mathematician and physicist |
| Peter Kropotkin | 1842–1921 | Russian revolutionary socialist and philosopher |
| Halldór Laxness | 1902–1998 | Icelandic author |
| France Prešeren | 1800–1849 | Slovene poet |
| Walther Bothe | 1891–1957 | German physicist, mathematician and chemist |
| Hulegu Khan | 1217–1265 | Western Asian Mongol ruler |
| Iris Murdoch | 1919–1999 | Irish-born British writer and philosopher |
| Alexis of Russia | 1629–1676 | Tsar of Russia (1645–1676) |
| Anna Nicole Smith | 1967–2007 | American actress and television personality |
| Ivan V of Russia | 1666–1696 | Tsar of Russia from 1682 to 1696 |
Names are the titles of the English Wikipedia articles; years and the short descriptions are from Wikidata, which publishes under CC0, checked and corrected by hand where they needed it, and nothing is said about anybody beyond that. Ask for a removal.