The 31st day of the year
Born on 31 January
Every 31 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
- Saturday and Tuesday16 times each between 1920 and 2026.
A nineteen-year beat
On 31 January the new year has kept to a nineteen-year beat: 1938, the Earth Tiger; 1957, the Fire Rooster; 1976, the Fire Dragon; 1995, the Wood Pig; and 2014, the Wood Horse. The run continues to 31 January 2033, the first day of the Water Ox.
Between those years the boundary wanders. In 2015 the new year fell on 19 February, so 31 January 2015 belongs to the Wood Horse of 2014 just as 31 January 2014 does: two birthdays a year apart, the same animal. In 2025 the Snake began on 29 January and 31 January 2025 was already inside it.
From 1920 to 2026 a 31 January birthday fell on or after the new year in 38 years and before it in 69, so by the last day of January the new year had arrived in just over a third of those years, against 33 on the day before. The sign is Aquarius in all of them, in every time zone.
Your year
Without JavaScript, the pages for each birth year give the generation and Chinese animal for a birth on 31 January in any year.
Which Chinese animal, by year
From 1920 to 2026 the lunar new year, reckoned in Beijing, came after 31 January in 69 of the 107 years, and in those years a birthday on it belonged to the animal of the year before; in the other 38 the new year had already begun. It was the first day of the new year itself in 1938, 1957, 1976, 1995 and 2014.
Shaded: 31 January came before that year's new year. Hatched: the new year began on 31 January. How the new year is found →
Which weekday 31 January falls on
Across the 107 years from 1920 to 2026, 31 January falls on every day of the week: Saturday 16, Tuesday 16, Monday 15, Wednesday 15, Thursday 15, Sunday 15, Friday 15.
Showing 31 January in the 36 most recent years. Every weekday →
How common a birthday 31 January is
In England and Wales, from 1995 to 2014, an average of 1,783 babies were born on 31 January in each year of the twenty, making it the 268th 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 31 January
| Name | Years | Known for |
|---|---|---|
| Franz Schubert | 1797–1828 | Austrian composer |
| Justin Timberlake | 1981– | American singer and actor |
| Kenzaburō Ōe | 1935–2023 | Japanese writer and Nobel Laureate |
| Beatrix of the Netherlands | 1938– | Queen of the Netherlands from 1980 to 2013 |
| Norman Mailer | 1923–2007 | American writer |
| Preity Zinta | 1975– | Indian actress |
| Tokugawa Ieyasu | 1543–1616 | founder and first shogun of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan |
| Irving Langmuir | 1881–1957 | American chemist and physicist |
| Alva Myrdal | 1902–1986 | Swedish sociologist and politician |
| Rudolf Mössbauer | 1929–2011 | German physicist, Nobel laureate in Physics |
| Theodor Heuss | 1884–1963 | German journalist and politician |
| Kerry Washington | 1977– | American actress |
| Philip Glass | 1937– | American composer |
| Theodore William Richards | 1868–1928 | United States chemist |
| Julián Alvarez | 2000– | Argentine footballer |
| Jean Simmons | 1929–2010 | British-American actress |
| John Lydon | 1956– | British-born Irish-American singer and songwriter |
| Portia de Rossi | 1973– | Australian-American actress |
Died on 31 January
| Name | Years | Known for |
|---|---|---|
| John Galsworthy | 1867–1933 | English novelist and playwright |
| John Bosco | 1815–1888 | Italian Catholic priest, educator and writer |
| Richard von Weizsäcker | 1920–2015 | President of Germany from 1984 to 1994 |
| A. A. Milne | 1882–1956 | British author known for creating Winnie-the-Pooh |
| Guy Fawkes | 1570–1606 | English member of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 |
| Ragnar Frisch | 1895–1973 | Norwegian economist |
| Jean Giraudoux | 1882–1944 | French novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright |
| Charles Spurgeon | 1834–1892 | British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist |
| John Mott | 1865–1955 | American evangelist and leader of the YMCA |
| Samuel Goldwyn | 1882–1974 | Polish-American film producer |
| Henry, King of Portugal | 1512–1580 | King of Portugal |
| Meher Baba | 1894–1969 | Indian spiritual leader |
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.