Birthdays · May

May 20 birthdayZodiac sign, famous birthdays, personality and your 2027 numbers

The short answer

May 20 is a cusp birthday, usually Taurus; in some years the Sun enters Gemini on this date, so check your birth year and time, with birthday number 2 and a Personal Year 9 in 2027; Honoré de Balzac (1799), John Stuart Mill (1806) and Cher (1946) were born on May 20 too.

Get my personal reading

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

Born on May 20? Add your birth year

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

May 20 zodiac sign: Taurus or Gemini

Sun sign: Taurus or Gemini, a cusp day
Sun at noon UTC: 28.6° to 30.0° Taurus
Decan: Third of Taurus, 20° to 30°
Element and mode: Earth, fixed
Ruling planet: Venus

May 20 is a cusp birthday, usually Taurus; in some years the Sun enters Gemini on this date, so check your birth year and time: in 24 of the 91 years from 1940 to 2030 the Sun crossed from Taurus into Gemini during May 20 counted in UTC, most recently in 2030, and at noon UTC it stood in Taurus in every year, so the change came after noon, late in the day. For a birth on May 20 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 May 20 the Sun is in the third decan of Taurus, 20° to 30°, in every one of those years, a face that belongs to Saturn in the Chaldean order and is read through Capricorn, ruled by Saturn, by triplicity, so the two systems agree; in most years the decan runs from May 11 to May 20, and May 20 is its tenth day.

In most years May 20 is the 31st day of the Sun’s season in Taurus, which runs from April 20 to May 20 counted at noon UTC, the last day of it. May 20 is the 140th day of a common year and the 141st of a leap year, with 225 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 May 20 birthdays

The earliest born of the twelve is Honoré de Balzac, in 1799, and the most recent Chris Froome, in 1985; three of them were born after 1949.

Born since 1950

Iker Casillas (born 1981), Spanish association football player
Petr Čech (born 1982), Czech footballer
Chris Froome (born 1985), British cyclist

Born from 1900 to 1949

Cher (born 1946), American musician, singer
James Stewart (1908–1997), American actor and military officer
Joe Cocker (1944–2014), British singer
Max Euwe (1901–1981), Dutch chess player and mathematician

Born in the 1800s

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), British philosopher and political economist
Sigrid Undset (1882–1949), Norwegian writer
Eduard Buchner (1860–1917), German chemist
Frédéric Passy (1822–1912), French economist and statesman

Born before 1800

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), French novelist and playwright

Birthdays from Wikidata, checked against Wikipedia’s “On this day” births: the twelve best known of the 67 people the Almanac’s table keeps for May 20, by how many Wikipedia editions cover them.

May 20 birthday personality

Both systems hand the last decan of Taurus to Saturn, so the old reading is patience in its slowest and surest form, things built to outlast their builder. It is the decan of the long apprenticeship, and the question it carries is whether endurance has left room for delight.

The 20th is the 2 with a zero beside it, read in numerology as the partner’s number amplified: patience, tact and a gift for the long collaboration. In an earth sign the 2 is read as the gentle steadiness of a long friendship, built on small kindnesses over years.

Where Taurus gives way to Gemini the settled hand meets the quick mind, comfort meeting curiosity. 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 May 20: where would your patience grow stronger if it asked for help instead of carrying everything alone?

The Sun in Taurus and the number 2 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 2

Born on the 20th, 2 + 0 = 2, so your birthday number is 2: a 2 vibration supports sensitivity, partnership, diplomacy, and careful listening, with relational intelligence and patience as its gift and over-dependence, passivity, or people-pleasing 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 May 20 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: May, the 5th month, gives 5, the 20th reduces to 2, and 5 + 2 + 11 = 18, which reduces to 9, so 2027 is your Personal Year 9.

A Personal Year 9 is read as a year of completion and release, when a nine-year round closes and makes room for the next. In a Universal Year 11 the tradition reads the endings as clearing the way for something more inspired.

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

In 2027 May 20 falls on a Thursday, the day the old reckoning gives to Jupiter, and is a Personal Day 7 (5 + 20 = 25, then 7) in a Personal Month 5 (9 + 5 = 14, then 5), while February is a master month 11; the Personal Year itself turns on 1 January, not on the birthday.

May birthstone and birth flower

Birthstone: Emerald
Birth flowers: Lily of the valley, and hawthorn as the second flower

May’s emerald comes from the modern list (the Jewelers of America list of 1912, as since revised), and its lily of the valley and hawthorn from The Old Farmer’s Almanac.

More birthdays

Common questions

What zodiac sign is May 20?

Usually Taurus; in some years the Sun enters Gemini on this date, so check your birth year and time. In 24 of the 91 years from 1940 to 2030 the Sun crossed from Taurus into Gemini during May 20 counted in UTC, so your birth year and time decide which sign was yours.

Is May 20 a cusp birthday?

Yes. In 24 of the 91 years from 1940 to 2030, most recently 2030, the Sun moved from Taurus into Gemini during May 20 (UTC), and which side of the change a birth fell on depends on its year and its minute, converted to UTC.

Who was born on May 20?

Among the best known people born on May 20 are Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) and Cher (born 1946), with Sigrid Undset, Iker Casillas and James Stewart and six more named on this page.

What is the birthday number for May 20?

2. Born on the 20th, 2 + 0 = 2, so your birthday number is 2: a 2 vibration supports sensitivity, partnership, diplomacy, and careful listening, with relational intelligence and patience as its gift and over-dependence, passivity, or people-pleasing as its strain.

What is the 2027 Personal Year for a May 20 birthday?

9. For a birthday on May 20 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: May, the 5th month, gives 5, the 20th reduces to 2, and 5 + 2 + 11 = 18, which reduces to 9, so 2027 is your Personal Year 9.