Birthdays · December

December 23 birthdayZodiac sign, famous birthdays, personality and your 2027 numbers

The short answer

December 23 is a Capricorn birthday in the first decan of Capricorn, one caveat aside for births far from Greenwich, with birthday number 5 and a Personal Year 1 in 2027; Alexander I of Russia (1777), Joseph Smith (1805) and Jean-François Champollion (1790) were born on December 23 too.

Get my personal reading

$0 today, then $12/month after 7 days. Cancel anytime.

Born on December 23? Add your birth year

See your exact Life Path, your 2027 year and your Road.

December 23 zodiac sign: Capricorn

Sun sign: Capricorn
Sun at noon UTC: 0.8° to 2.2° Capricorn
Decan: First of Capricorn, 0° to 10°
Element and mode: Earth, cardinal
Ruling planet: Saturn

At noon UTC on December 23 the Sun is in Capricorn in every one of the 91 years from 1940 to 2030, between 0.8° and 2.2° of the sign, but in 14 of those years, most recently 1983, it had entered Capricorn only late on the day before, counted in UTC, so a birth in the first hours of December 23 in a time zone east of Greenwich, such as Europe’s, Asia’s or Australia’s, can still have the Sun in Sagittarius. For a birth on December 23 the year, the time and the place settle the sign: convert the time of birth to UTC and compare it with the minute the Sun changed sign that year, or let the zodiac sign calculator do it from your date, time and city.

At noon UTC on December 23 the Sun is in the first decan of Capricorn, 0° to 10°, in every one of those years, a face that belongs to Jupiter in the Chaldean order and is read through Capricorn, ruled by Saturn, by triplicity; in most years the decan runs from December 22 to December 31, and December 23 is its second day.

In most years December 23 is the 2nd day of the Sun’s season in Capricorn, which runs from December 22 to January 19 counted at noon UTC, with 27 days of it still to come. December 23 is the 357th day of a common year and the 358th of a leap year, with 8 days of the year still to come after it.

From the reference page to your own chart

What does your own chart say about you?

Choose love, work or purpose. Your reading is written from your chart. Your reading uses your own birth details.

Get my personal reading $0 today, then $12/month after 7 days. Cancel anytime.

Walk through Alex’s whole example first

The Road of AgesSee the turning points of your whole life, from your birth date See your road's shape

Prefer to explore first?

Member tools The 2026 book Lectures

The daily letter, free

One short letter at 7 each morning: the day’s theme read for your own chart.

The Road of AgesThe turning points of your whole life, from your own chart Walk my road

Free, by email

Your daily Almanac letter

One short letter at 7 each morning: the day’s theme read for your own chart, and one thing to do with it.

Famous December 23 birthdays

The earliest born of the twelve is Alexander I of Russia, in 1777, and the most recent Finn Wolfhard, in 2002; five of them were born after 1949.

Born since 1950

Stefan Hell (born 1962)
Vicente del Bosque (born 1950), Spanish footballer and manager
Donna Tartt (born 1963), American writer
Finn Wolfhard (born 2002), Canadian actor and musician
Eddie Vedder (born 1964), American singer and guitarist

Born from 1900 to 1949

Queen Silvia of Sweden (born 1943), queen consort of Sweden
Niels Kaj Jerne (1911–1994), Danish immunologist

Born in the 1800s

Joseph Smith (1805–1844), American religious leader
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804–1869), French literary critic
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (1896–1957), Sicilian Prince and writer

Born before 1800

Alexander I of Russia (1777–1825), The tenth Emperor of Russia
Jean-François Champollion (1790–1832), French classical scholar

Birthdays from Wikidata, checked against Wikipedia’s “On this day” births: the twelve best known of the 60 people the Almanac’s table keeps for December 23, by how many Wikipedia editions cover them.

December 23 birthday personality

Jupiter, in its fall in Capricorn, opens the sign in the Chaldean order while Saturn keeps it by triplicity, so ambition is read here as a vision patient enough to build itself brick by brick. The old reading credits it with foresight and asks that it leave a little room for luck.

The 23rd adds 2 and 3 into 5, so numerology reads it as a lively, curious birthday, the partner and the talker becoming the traveller. It is linked with versatility and a quick wit. In an earth sign the 5 is read as restlessness with roots, change welcomed one careful step at a time.

Where Sagittarius gives way to Capricorn the traveller meets the builder at the December solstice, vision meeting discipline. Some readers take a birthday this close to the change to carry something of both signs, a symbolic reading the calculation cannot measure; which sign the Sun was in at a birth is a matter of fact, settled by the year, the time and the place.

A question to carry from December 23: which routine is your discipline ready to change, and which one is worth keeping?

The Sun in Capricorn and the number 5 are only part of the story: your Moon, your rising sign and the rest of your chart have as much to say, and the tradition offers all this as a mirror, never a verdict.

Birthday number 5

Born on the 23rd, 2 + 3 = 5, so your birthday number is 5: a 5 vibration supports freedom, change, movement, curiosity, and experimentation, with adaptability and discovery as its gift and restlessness, inconsistency, or escapism as its strain.

Your 2027 numbers

Pythagoras with a small lyre, pointing to a triangle of ten pebbles in his palm, an engraving — Pythagoras, the philosopher of number

For a birthday on December 23 the house method reduces the birth month and the day on their own and adds the Universal Year of 2027, 11 (2 + 0 + 2 + 7 = 11, a master number kept whole), as it stands: December, the 12th month, reduces to 3, the 23rd reduces to 5, and 3 + 5 + 11 = 19, which reduces to 1, so 2027 is your Personal Year 1. On the way it passes 19, a karmic debt number, read in a year as a lesson to work through rather than as bad luck.

Numerology reads a Personal Year 1 as the first page of a new chapter, a season for independence, initiative and a fresh plan. With the Universal Year an 11, the house reads 2027 as a good year to start the thing intuition has been pointing toward.

Personal Months of 2027, a Personal Year 1: Jan 2 Feb 3 Mar 4 Apr 5 May 6 Jun 7 Jul 8 Aug 9 Sep 1 Oct 11 Nov 3 Dec 4

In 2027 December 23 falls on a Thursday, the day the old reckoning gives to Jupiter, and is a Personal Day 9 (4 + 23 = 27, then 9) in a Personal Month 4 (1 + 12 = 13, then 4), while October is a master month 11; the Personal Year itself turns on 1 January, not on the birthday.

December birthstone and birth flower

Birthstones: Turquoise, tanzanite and zircon
Birth flowers: Narcissus, and holly as the second flower

December’s turquoise, tanzanite and zircon come from the modern list (the Jewelers of America list of 1912, as since revised), and its narcissus and holly from The Old Farmer’s Almanac.

More birthdays

Common questions

What zodiac sign is December 23?

Capricorn, almost always: at noon UTC on December 23 the Sun is in Capricorn in every year from 1940 to 2030, but in 14 of those years, most recently 1983, it had entered Capricorn only late on the day before, counted in UTC, so a birth in the first hours of December 23 in a time zone east of Greenwich, such as Europe’s, Asia’s or Australia’s, can still have the Sun in Sagittarius.

Is December 23 a cusp birthday?

Not in UTC: in no year from 1940 to 2030 does the Sun change sign during December 23 counted in UTC, though in 14 of those years, most recently 1983, it had entered Capricorn only late on the day before, counted in UTC, so a birth in the first hours of December 23 in a time zone east of Greenwich, such as Europe’s, Asia’s or Australia’s, can still have the Sun in Sagittarius. The nearest cusp birthday is December 22, one day earlier.

Who was born on December 23?

Among the best known people born on December 23 are Alexander I of Russia (1777–1825), Joseph Smith (1805–1844) and Jean-François Champollion (1790–1832), with Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and Stefan Hell and six more named on this page.

What is the birthday number for December 23?

5. Born on the 23rd, 2 + 3 = 5, so your birthday number is 5: a 5 vibration supports freedom, change, movement, curiosity, and experimentation, with adaptability and discovery as its gift and restlessness, inconsistency, or escapism as its strain.

What is the 2027 Personal Year for a December 23 birthday?

1. For a birthday on December 23 the house method reduces the birth month and the day on their own and adds the Universal Year of 2027, 11 (2 + 0 + 2 + 7 = 11, a master number kept whole), as it stands: December, the 12th month, reduces to 3, the 23rd reduces to 5, and 3 + 5 + 11 = 19, which reduces to 1, so 2027 is your Personal Year 1. On the way it passes 19, a karmic debt number, read in a year as a lesson to work through rather than as bad luck.