The 23rd day of the year
Born on 23 January
Every 23 January birthday from 1920 to 2026 was Aquarius, in every time zone.
- Star sign
- AquariusAir, fixed, ruled by Saturn.
- Birthstone
- GarnetThe same as on the 1912 list.
- Birth flower
- Carnation, SnowdropUsually taken today to mean devotion and hope.
- Most common weekdays
- Friday and Monday16 times each between 1920 and 2026.
Two Dragons, 84 years apart
Four new years have begun on 23 January since 1920, two of them Dragons: the Earth Dragon of 1928 and the Water Dragon of 2012, with the Wood Tiger of 1974 and the Water Rooster of 1993 between them. Counting the years in which the new year came even earlier, on the 21st or 22nd, a 23 January birthday fell on or after it in eight years from 1920 to 2026 and before it in the other 99.
The Dragon pair shows how the animal and the element turn on separate wheels. The animals repeat every twelve years and the five elements, each held for two years, every ten, so the same pair comes round only every sixty. 1928 and 2012 are 84 years apart, which brings back the Dragon but not the Earth. The next new year on this date is 23 January 2031, the first day of the Metal Pig.
The sign never moves here: 23 January was Aquarius all day, everywhere, in every year from 1920 to 2026.
Your year
Without JavaScript, the pages for each birth year give the generation and Chinese animal for a birth on 23 January in any year.
Which Chinese animal, by year
From 1920 to 2026 the lunar new year, reckoned in Beijing, came after 23 January in 99 of the 107 years, and in those years a birthday on it belonged to the animal of the year before; in the other 8 the new year had already begun. It was the first day of the new year itself in 1928, 1974, 1993 and 2012.
Shaded: 23 January came before that year's new year. Hatched: the new year began on 23 January. How the new year is found →
Which weekday 23 January falls on
Across the 107 years from 1920 to 2026, 23 January falls on every day of the week: Friday 16, Monday 16, Sunday 15, Tuesday 15, Wednesday 15, Saturday 15, Thursday 15.
Showing 23 January in the 36 most recent years. Every weekday →
How common a birthday 23 January is
In England and Wales, from 1995 to 2014, an average of 1,798 babies were born on 23 January in each year of the twenty, making it the 213th 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 23 January
| Name | Years | Known for |
|---|---|---|
| David Hilbert | 1862–1943 | German mathematician |
| Stendhal | 1783–1842 | French writer |
| Édouard Manet | 1832–1883 | French painter |
| Megawati Sukarnoputri | 1947– | 5th President of Indonesia (2001—2004) and 8th Vice President of Indonesia (1999—2001) |
| Derek Walcott | 1930–2017 | Saint Lucian–Trinidadian poet and playwright |
| Hideki Yukawa | 1907–1981 | Japanese theoretical physicist |
| Arjen Robben | 1984– | Dutch association football player |
| Gertrude B. Elion | 1918–1999 | American biochemist and pharmacologist |
| Jeanne Moreau | 1928–2017 | French actress, singer, screenwriter and director |
| Subhas Chandra Bose | 1897–1945 | Indian nationalist leader |
| Otto Diels | 1876–1954 | German chemist |
| Rutger Hauer | 1944–2019 | Dutch actor |
| XXXTentacion | 1998–2018 | American rapper |
| Ernst Abbe | 1840–1905 | German physicist |
| Django Reinhardt | 1910–1953 | Belgian-born French jazz guitarist and composer |
| Paul Langevin | 1872–1946 | French physicist, philosopher of science and pedagogue |
| John Polanyi | 1929– | Hungarian-Canadian chemist |
| Boris Berezovsky | 1946–2013 | Russian oligarch, government official, engineer and mathematician |
Died on 23 January
| Name | Years | Known for |
|---|---|---|
| Salvador Dalí | 1904–1989 | Spanish artist |
| Edvard Munch | 1863–1944 | Norwegian painter |
| Abdullah of Saudi Arabia | 1924–2015 | King of Saudi Arabia from 2005 to 2015 |
| Hal Holbrook | 1925–2021 | American actor |
| Ferdinand II of Aragon | 1452–1516 | King of Aragon, Sicily, Naples, and Valencia |
| Pierre Bourdieu | 1930–2002 | French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher |
| Larry King | 1933–2021 | American television and radio host |
| Anna Pavlova | 1881–1931 | Russian ballet dancer |
| William Pitt the Younger | 1759–1806 | British statesman |
| Giambattista Vico | 1668–1744 | Italian philosopher, rhetorician, historian and jurist |
| Gustave Doré | 1832–1883 | French illustrator and painter |
| Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor | 980–1002 | Holy Roman Emperor from 996 to 1002 |
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.