Birthday in Roman Numerals
A birthday in Roman numerals is the date converted piece by piece: the day, the month as its number, and the year, each written as its own numeral. Enter your date below to get the exact form for a tattoo, a card, an engraving or a gift, then copy it or download it as an image.
1 / 1 / 2026 is I · I · MMXXVI
How a birthday becomes a numeral
Take 14 March 1996. The day, 14, is XIV. The month, March, is the third of the year, so it is III. The year 1996 is MCMXCVI. Put together, the birthday reads XIV · III · MCMXCVI inline, or stacks in three lines with the year at the bottom. No part of the date borrows from another: each number is converted on its own, which is why the method works for any birthday from any decade.
Digits that would carry a leading zero in a written date simply lose it. There is no zero in the Roman system, so the 5th of a month is V and the 9th is IX, however the date is printed on a certificate.
Birth year only: the one-line piece
Many birthday pieces skip the day and month and carry just the year. That single numeral is often the better design choice: it is shorter, it is readable at a glance, and it leaves no day-versus-month ambiguity. Popular birth years each have a full page here with the numeral, its breakdown and a copy button, for example 1990, 1996, 2000 and 2020, or browse every year and the 1900 to 2099 chart.
Getting the order right
Roman numerals hide which part of the date is which, so decide the order before anything becomes permanent. Day-month-year and month-day-year both convert to valid numerals; they just read differently back. Write the chosen order down next to the numerals when you hand a design to a tattoo artist, an engraver or a printer, and have them read it back to you as a date.
Frequently asked questions
How do I write my birthday in Roman numerals?
Convert each part of the date on its own: the day, the month as its number, and the year. A birthday on 14 March 1996 becomes XIV for the day, III for the month, and MCMXCVI for the year. The generator above produces the exact numerals and lets you download them as an image.
What happens to the zero in a date like 07 or 05?
It disappears. Roman numerals have no zero and no leading zeros, so the 7th is simply VII and the 5th is V. A birthday written 07-05 in digits becomes VII and V, nothing more.
Can I use just my birth year instead of the full date?
Yes, and it is the most common single-line birthday piece. A birth year stands alone as one numeral, for example MCMXCVI for 1996, and every modern year has its own page on this site with the breakdown and a copy button.
Is the month written as a word or a number?
As a number. March is the third month, so it becomes III; December becomes XII. That is why the order matters: agree whether the day or the month comes first before anything is engraved, because the numerals themselves do not show which is which.