Mayan Day Sign Calculator
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Find your Kin number and traditional Day Sign in the 260-day Tzolk'in — the sacred Maya calendar day-keepers still use today.
Quick answer: Your Tzolk'in day sign is your position in the 260-day Maya sacred calendar — a Kin number (1–260) formed from a Tzolk'in Number (1–13) and one of 20 Day Sign names. Traditional Maya day-keepers still use this calendar today. Enter your birth date above and this tool computes your exact Kin, number, and Day Sign instantly.
Your Tzolk'in Day Sign
📐 Formula
Your birth date is converted to a Julian Day Number (the continuous day count astronomers use), then the Goodman-Martinez-Thompson (GMT) correlation constant — 584283, the most widely accepted correlation between the Maya calendar and the Gregorian calendar — is subtracted to get a Maya day count. That count, offset so day zero lands on the traditional starting point of the cycle, is reduced modulo 260 for your Kin, modulo 13 for your Tzolk'in Number, and modulo 20 for your Day Sign.
How to Use the Mayan Day Sign Calculator
Enter your birth month
Select the month you were born from the dropdown above the result box.
Enter your birth day
Select the day of the month you were born. The day options update automatically to match the selected month and year, including leap years.
Enter your birth year
Type the year you were born. Any year between 1900 and 2100 works — values outside that range are automatically clamped to the nearest valid year.
View your Kin, Tzolk'in Number, and Day Sign instantly
See your full Kin (1–260), your Tzolk'in Number (1–13), and your traditional Day Sign displayed immediately — there's no button to press.
The 260-Day Tzolk'in: How 13 Numbers and 20 Day Signs Combine
The Tzolk'in is the Maya sacred calendar — sometimes called the "day count" — and it has run in an unbroken 260-day cycle for well over two thousand years. Its structure is deceptively simple: 13 numbers (1 through 13) cycle alongside 20 named Day Signs, and because 13 and 20 share no common factor besides 1, every possible number-and-sign pairing is unique before the whole sequence repeats. Multiply the two together — 13 × 20 — and you get exactly 260 distinct days, each with its own combination, called a Kin. This calculator numbers that position from 1 to 260 for readability, though the traditional cycle itself has no fixed "day one" — it has simply run continuously, day after day, long before written history recorded it.
The 260-day length has genuine, still-debated anthropological roots — commonly linked to the human gestation period, to the agricultural cycle in parts of Mesoamerica, or to the interval between the sun's two annual zenith passages at some Maya latitudes. Whatever its origin, the Tzolk'in wasn't a historical curiosity that faded with the Classic Maya collapse: traditional Maya day-keepers (ajq'ijab' in K'iche') across Guatemala and southern Mexico still count the Tzolk'in today, using it to name children, time ceremonies, and read the character of a given day — the same living tradition this calculator draws its math from.
The Maya Creation Date: 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk'u
Every Tzolk'in calculation ultimately anchors back to a single date the Classic Maya themselves recorded as the start of the current cosmic era: 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk'u, written 13.0.0.0.0 in Long Count notation. Converted to the proleptic Gregorian calendar, scholars place that date on August 11, 3114 BCE. It's a real, carved-in-stone historical reference point, not a modern invention — Maya monuments repeatedly count forward from it, which is how epigraphers reconstructed the correlation between the Maya and Gregorian calendars in the first place. This calculator uses that same anchor: subtract the Julian Day Number of 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk'u (via the correlation constant below) from your birth date's own Julian Day Number, and the remainder — reduced to a position in the 260-day cycle — is your Kin.
Traditional Tzolk'in vs. the Modern "Dreamspell" System — An Honest Note
Search around online and you'll find two very different calendars both calling themselves "Mayan." This calculator uses the traditional Tzolk'in, anchored to the Goodman-Martinez-Thompson (GMT) correlation — the correlation accepted by the overwhelming majority of Mayanist scholars and, more importantly, the one real Maya day-keepers use today. The other system, often called "Dreamspell," is a modern reinterpretation created in 1987 by José Argüelles, built around its own start date (July 26, 1987) and its own vocabulary. Dreamspell reshuffles the day-sign order and isn't accepted by Maya scholars or traditional communities as the authentic calendar — it's a distinct, newer system that happens to borrow Maya day-sign names. If a Kin number you've seen elsewhere doesn't match this calculator's result for the same birthday, this is almost always why: you're most likely comparing a Dreamspell reading to a traditional one, not seeing an error in either tool.
Worked Example: Born August 21, 2026
For a birth date of August 21, 2026, this calculator returns Kin 211 — Tzolk'in Number 3, Day Sign Chuwen (the Monkey), traditionally read as a day of creativity and artisan skill. That result matches the independently documented "3 Chuen" reading for the same date under the traditional correlation, a useful way to confirm the underlying math is sound.
Worked Example: The Creation Date Itself
Run this calculator's formula on the Maya creation date, 4 Ajaw 8 Kumk'u (August 11, 3114 BCE proleptic Gregorian), and it returns Tzolk'in Number 4, Day Sign Ajaw — exactly the historically recorded date name. The very next day, by the same math, is 5 Imix — also matching the documented record. Both are well-established facts among Maya epigraphers, and both check out against this calculator's own formula.
The 20 Day Signs (Nahuales) and Their Traditional Meanings
Below is the full cycle of 20 Day Signs in their traditional order, sometimes called Nahuales in the K'iche' Maya tradition. Each one carries a symbolic meaning tied to nature, ancestry, or cosmic force — the same associations traditional day-keepers draw on when reading a person's day sign.
| # | Day Sign | Translation | Traditional Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Imix | Crocodile / Water Lily | Primordial creation, nurturing beginnings, and the fertile waters of life. |
| 2 | Ik' | Wind | Breath, life force, communication, and the spark of spirit. |
| 3 | Ak'bal | Night | Darkness, dreams, and the quiet introspection of the underworld. |
| 4 | K'an | Seed / Net | Ripening abundance, potential, and growth toward harvest. |
| 5 | Chikchan | Celestial Serpent | Vital life energy, wisdom, and instinct. |
| 6 | Kimi | Death | Transformation — an ending that clears the way for renewal. |
| 7 | Manik' | Deer | Healing hands, gentleness, and sure-footed guidance. |
| 8 | Lamat | Star / Venus | Abundance, beauty, and the ripening of the harvest. |
| 9 | Muluk | Water / Jade | Emotional depth, purification, and offering. |
| 10 | Ok | Dog | Loyalty, guidance, and faithful companionship. |
| 11 | Chuwen | Monkey | Creativity, playfulness, and artisan skill. |
| 12 | Eb' | Road / Rain | The human path, cooperation, and destiny. |
| 13 | Ben | Reed / Young Maize | Leadership, authority, and growth reaching skyward. |
| 14 | Ix | Jaguar | Earth magic, feminine strength, and intuition. |
| 15 | Men | Eagle | Vision, ambition, and a far-seeing perspective. |
| 16 | Kib' | Owl / Wax | Ancestral wisdom, introspection, and receiving knowledge. |
| 17 | Kaban | Earth | Movement, thought, and the intellectual force of the land. |
| 18 | Etz'nab | Flint | Clarity, truth-telling, and decisive action. |
| 19 | Kawak | Storm | Purification and renewal through upheaval. |
| 20 | Ajaw | Lord / Sun | Completion, sovereignty, and spiritual enlightenment. |
Find your own Day Sign's row above for a quick read on its traditional association — or scroll back up and enter your birth date to see your full Kin, Tzolk'in Number, and Day Sign computed automatically.
Curious how this compares to Western astrology's sun-based zodiac? Our zodiac sign calculator reads the 12-sign tropical zodiac from the same kind of birth date, or go deeper with decans and ruling planets on our birth chart calculator. If it's a lunar placement you're after, our Vedic Astrology Calculator computes a real sidereal Moon sign (Rashi) using your exact birth time. And for a completely different birth-year-based system, our Chinese zodiac calculator reads your animal sign from the 12-year East Asian cycle. Browse every tool in the category on the Astrology Calculators hub.
Frequently Asked Questions
Your Tzolk'in day sign is your position in the 260-day Maya sacred calendar, made of two parts: a Tzolk'in Number from 1 to 13, and one of 20 named Day Signs — together forming a unique Kin from 1 to 260 before the cycle repeats. This calculator converts your birth date to a Julian Day Number, subtracts the Goodman-Martinez-Thompson correlation constant (584283) to get a Maya day count anchored to the traditional creation date, then reduces that count modulo 260 for your Kin, modulo 13 for your Tzolk'in Number, and modulo 20 for your Day Sign.
This tool uses the traditional Tzolk'in, anchored to the Goodman-Martinez-Thompson correlation that Mayanist scholars and living Maya day-keepers actually use. "Dreamspell" is a different, modern system created in 1987 by José Argüelles, anchored to its own July 26, 1987 start date and its own reshuffled day-sign order and vocabulary — it isn't recognized by Maya scholars or traditional communities as the authentic calendar. If a result you've seen elsewhere for your birthday doesn't match this calculator's Kin number, you're almost certainly comparing a Dreamspell reading to a traditional one, not seeing an error.
Nahual (also spelled nawal) is the term K'iche' Maya day-keepers use for a person's Day Sign — the specific one of the 20 named signs governing the day they were born. In traditional practice, a person's Nahual is thought to shape their character and life path, similar to how a sun sign functions in Western astrology. This calculator shows your Nahual as your Day Sign result — the same 20-sign cycle, just under its traditional K'iche' name.
Yes. Traditional Maya day-keepers, called ajq'ijab' in K'iche', continue to count the Tzolk'in in communities across Guatemala and southern Mexico, using it to time ceremonies, name children, and read the character of a given day. It's one of the oldest continuously used calendar systems in the Americas — unlike the Haab' (365-day solar calendar) and Long Count, which fell out of everyday civil use centuries ago, the Tzolk'in's ritual role has never actually stopped.
584283 is the Goodman-Martinez-Thompson (GMT) correlation constant — the number of days between the Maya creation date (4 Ajaw 8 Kumk'u, August 11, 3114 BCE in the proleptic Gregorian calendar) and day zero of the Julian Day Number system astronomers use. It's the correlation accepted by the overwhelming majority of Mayanist scholars, and was further confirmed by carbon-14 dating of a wooden lintel from Tikal's Temple I that matched its predicted date. A small number of alternate correlations exist in older scholarship, but GMT 584283 is the standard this calculator, and virtually every modern reference, uses.
No — this tool is scoped to the Tzolk'in (the 260-day sacred count) only. The Maya used two other calendar systems alongside it: the Haab', a 365-day solar calendar, and the Long Count, a continuous day-count used for tracking longer spans of history. Combining all three into a full Maya date is a bigger calculation than a single day-sign lookup, so it's out of scope for this calculator — but the Tzolk'in alone is the part most closely tied to personal day-sign meaning, which is what this tool focuses on.
Sources & Methodology
There's no government or standards body that governs the Maya calendar, so a CDC or IRS-style citation doesn't apply here — but the underlying calendrical math is a genuine, checkable historical fact, not folklore, and we cite it precisely. This calculator uses the Goodman-Martinez-Thompson (GMT) correlation constant, 584283 — the correlation accepted by the overwhelming majority of Mayanist scholars and confirmed by carbon-14 dating of a wooden lintel from Tikal's Temple I, per Encyclopaedia Britannica's Maya calendar entry. Our Julian-Day-Number and modulo-arithmetic implementation was independently checked against Wikipedia's Tzolk'in reference article, which documents August 21, 2026 as "3 Chuen" in the traditional system — this calculator reproduces that exact result. This is the traditional calendar still kept by Maya day-keepers today, not the modern "Dreamspell" reinterpretation some other sites present under similar branding; see the FAQ above for that distinction stated plainly.