Every month of the year is shared by two zodiac signs, because the signs change around the 20th and not on the 1st. Someone born in early November is a Scorpio and someone born at the end of it a Sagittarius, and the day on which one becomes the other moves a little from year to year. The table gives the signs of each month and this year's exact changeover; each month has its own page with the changeover for every birth year, the stone and flower of the month and what astrology says about the two halves.

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The two signs of each month

Universal Time (UTC). Add or subtract the time zone of the birthplace.

Why a Month Is Not a Sign

The zodiac is tied to the Sun, not to the calendar. A sign is a twelfth of the Sun's yearly path, and the first of them, Aries, begins at the March equinox, around 20 March. The others follow at intervals of about thirty days, which puts every boundary near the 20th of a month. That is why the phrase 'November born' covers two different signs, and why descriptions of a birth month that ignore the day tend to read like a blend of two characters. In astrology the day matters more than the month, and the exact time and place matter more than the day, because they give the Moon sign and the Rising sign as well.

The Changeover Day Moves

A year is about six hours longer than 365 days, and the calendar absorbs the difference with a leap day every four years. The result is that the Sun crosses into each sign a little later every year for three years and then jumps back. Over the birth years 1940 to 2040 the Sun entered Sagittarius on 22 November in 83 years, on 21 November in 11 and on 23 November in 7, measured in Universal Time. Add the reader's own time zone and the same moment can fall on a different calendar date in Sydney and in Los Angeles. Anyone born within a day of a boundary needs the year, the clock time and the place to know the sign, and the month pages list the moment for each year.

Does the Month You Were Born in Shape Your Character?

It is worth separating three different ideas. The first is astrological: the Sun sign, which depends on the day, describes temperament, and the rest of the chart refines it. The second is folklore: lists of what January people or August people are like, passed around without a source. The third is research. Studies do find small season-of-birth patterns, the best documented being the relative age effect, in which children who are the oldest in their school year do better on average in sport and in class than the youngest. That effect follows the school cut-off date, not the stars and not the month as such, and it largely fades in adult life. None of it supports the idea that a birth month alone fixes a personality.

Stones, Flowers and Names

The other traditions attached to a birth month are older than horoscopes in newspapers. Birthstones go back to lists of twelve gems that were linked to the months in early modern Europe; the modern list was standardised by American jewellers in 1912 and has been added to since. Birth flowers come from the Victorian language of flowers. The month names are Roman: January for Janus, March for Mars, July and August for Julius Caesar and Augustus, and September to December simply for the numbers seven to ten, left over from a calendar that began in March. Each month page gives its stone, its flower and where its name comes from.

How to Use These Pages

Start from the month and read the half that contains your birthday. If the birthday is one of the two or three days around the changeover, look up the birth year in the table on the month page: it gives the date and Universal Time at which the Sun changed sign that year. For a birth far from a boundary the sign is certain and the day pages linked from each month go further, with the degree of the Sun and well-known people who share the date. A birth chart takes the last step. It places the Moon, the Rising sign and the planets for the exact minute, which is where two people born in the same month stop looking alike.

Frequently asked

Which zodiac signs belong to each month?

January: Capricorn and Aquarius. February: Aquarius and Pisces. March: Pisces and Aries. April: Aries and Taurus. May: Taurus and Gemini. June: Gemini and Cancer. July: Cancer and Leo. August: Leo and Virgo. September: Virgo and Libra. October: Libra and Scorpio. November: Scorpio and Sagittarius. December: Sagittarius and Capricorn.

Why do sources give different dates for the same sign?

Because the Sun changes sign at a slightly different moment each year, and the calendar date also depends on the time zone. A printed range has to pick one day; the true boundary moves across two or three.

Is there such a thing as being born on the cusp?

The Sun is always in one sign or the other, never in both. People born on a changeover day belong to whichever sign the Sun was in at their minute of birth, which the birth year, time and place decide.

Does a birth month have its own personality?

Not in astrology, where each month holds two signs. Research finds only small effects tied to the school year, not to the month itself.

Zodiac signs, month by month