Birthdays · July

July 21 birthdayZodiac sign, famous birthdays, personality and your 2027 numbers

The short answer

July 21 is a Cancer birthday in the third decan of Cancer, one caveat aside for births far from Greenwich, with birthday number 3 and a Personal Year 3 in 2027; Ernest Hemingway (1899), Robin Williams (1951) and Erling Haaland (2000) were born on July 21 too.

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July 21 zodiac sign: Cancer

Sun sign: Cancer
Sun at noon UTC: 27.9° to 29.2° Cancer
Decan: Third of Cancer, 20° to 30°
Element and mode: Water, cardinal
Ruling planet: The Moon

At noon UTC on July 21 the Sun is in Cancer in every one of the 91 years from 1940 to 2030, between 27.9° and 29.2° of the sign, but in 7 of those years, most recently 2028, it went on into Leo within hours of the date’s end in UTC, so a birth late on July 21 in a time zone west of Greenwich, such as the Americas’, can already have the Sun in Leo. For a birth on July 21 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 July 21 the Sun is in the third decan of Cancer, 20° to 30°, in every one of those years, a face that belongs to the Moon in the Chaldean order and is read through Pisces, ruled by Jupiter, by triplicity; in most years the decan runs from July 13 to July 22, and July 21 is its ninth day.

In most years July 21 is the 30th day of the Sun’s season in Cancer, which runs from June 22 to July 22 counted at noon UTC, with one day of it still to come. July 21 is the 202nd day of a common year and the 203rd of a leap year, with 163 days of the year still to come after it.

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Famous July 21 birthdays

The earliest born of the twelve is Pope Sixtus IV, in 1414, and the most recent Erling Haaland, in 2000; four of them were born after 1949.

Born since 1950

Robin Williams (1951–2014), American actor and comedian
Erling Haaland (born 2000), Norwegian footballer
Josh Hartnett (born 1978), American actor and producer
Béla Tarr (1955–2026), Hungarian filmmaker and anarchist

Born from 1900 to 1949

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980), Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar
Cat Stevens (born 1948), British musician
Don Knotts (1924–2006), American actor and stand-up comedian
Rudolph A. Marcus (1923–2026), Canadian-American chemist

Born in the 1800s

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961), American author and journalist
Hans Fallada (1893–1947), German writer

Born before 1800

Pope Sixtus IV (1414–1484), pope of the Catholic Church from 1471 to 1484
Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle (1693–1768), Prime Minister of Great Britain

Birthdays from Wikidata, checked against Wikipedia’s “On this day” births: the twelve best known of the 58 people the Almanac’s table keeps for July 21, by how many Wikipedia editions cover them, with dates before the calendar reform as the sources give them.

July 21 birthday personality

The Moon rules the last ten degrees of its own sign in the Chaldean order and Pisces adds Jupiter’s breadth by triplicity, so this is read as the most porous Cancer, a sympathy that reaches past the family to the stranger. The reflection the decan carries is where care ends and self-forgetting begins.

Born on the 21st, 2 and 1 add to 3: partnership and initiative turning into expression. Numerology reads it as a sociable, creative birthday, the host who is also the entertainer. The tradition reads water with a 3 as the poet’s gift, turning feeling into words, music or images.

Where Cancer gives way to Leo the private heart steps onto the stage, care meeting confidence. 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 July 21: what would your instinct to protect make if it set aside the fear of how it will be received?

The Sun in Cancer and the number 3 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 3

Born on the 21st, 2 + 1 = 3, so your birthday number is 3: a 3 vibration supports creativity, communication, joy, and expressive movement, with creative communication as its gift and scattered focus, avoidance, or emotional dramatization 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 July 21 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: July, the 7th month, gives 7, the 21st reduces to 3, and 7 + 3 + 11 = 21, which reduces to 3, so 2027 is your Personal Year 3.

A Personal Year 3 is read as a year of expression, friendship and creative play, when what you make and say carries further than usual. Under the Universal Year 11 the reading adds inspiration, with the caution to finish what the bright ideas begin.

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

In 2027 July 21 falls on a Wednesday, the day the old reckoning gives to Mercury, and is a Personal Day 22 (1 + 21 = 22) in a Personal Month 1 (3 + 7 = 10, then 1), while August is a master month 11; the Personal Year itself turns on 1 January, not on the birthday.

July birthstone and birth flower

Birthstone: Ruby
Birth flowers: Larkspur, and water lily as the second flower

July’s ruby comes from the modern list (the Jewelers of America list of 1912, as since revised), and its larkspur and water lily from The Old Farmer’s Almanac.

More birthdays

Common questions

What zodiac sign is July 21?

Cancer, almost always: at noon UTC on July 21 the Sun is in Cancer in every year from 1940 to 2030, but in 7 of those years, most recently 2028, it went on into Leo within hours of the date’s end in UTC, so a birth late on July 21 in a time zone west of Greenwich, such as the Americas’, can already have the Sun in Leo.

Is July 21 a cusp birthday?

Not in UTC: in no year from 1940 to 2030 does the Sun change sign during July 21 counted in UTC, though in 7 of those years, most recently 2028, it went on into Leo within hours of the date’s end in UTC, so a birth late on July 21 in a time zone west of Greenwich, such as the Americas’, can already have the Sun in Leo. The nearest cusp birthday is July 22, one day later.

Who was born on July 21?

Among the best known people born on July 21 are Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961), Robin Williams (1951–2014) and Erling Haaland (born 2000), with Marshall McLuhan, Pope Sixtus IV and Cat Stevens and six more named on this page.

What is the birthday number for July 21?

3. Born on the 21st, 2 + 1 = 3, so your birthday number is 3: a 3 vibration supports creativity, communication, joy, and expressive movement, with creative communication as its gift and scattered focus, avoidance, or emotional dramatization as its strain.

What is the 2027 Personal Year for a July 21 birthday?

3. For a birthday on July 21 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: July, the 7th month, gives 7, the 21st reduces to 3, and 7 + 3 + 11 = 21, which reduces to 3, so 2027 is your Personal Year 3.