Birthdays

According to Myanmar traditional astronomy, there are eight days in a week as opposed to seven days in the internationally accepted calendar. In the Myanmar calendar, the eighth day is added in the middle of the week where 'Wednesday evening' is named "Yahu". However, Yahu is not considered as a significant day of week and thus not included on many official calendars.

Signs Day of Week

Numerical Values per Day of the Week

It may sound strange to learn that there are numerical values for days of the week in addition to signs. The value starts with one for Sunday and increments each day.

Value Day of Week Myanmar Day of Week

Burmese Names

Burmese people have no family name. A woman has her own name and retains it even after marriage. A child is normally named according to the day of the week that he (or she) was born, whereby each day of the week is denoted by certain letters of the Myanmar alphabet. For example, Monday is denoted by the names Kyaw, Khin, Kyin, etc; Tuesday by San, Su, Nyi, etc. Another way to name a child is based on his (or her) date of birth.

A person is usually addressed according to his age. For older people, their names are pre-fixed with U (pronounced Oo) and Daw and are the equivalents of Mr and Mrs respectively. A young adult is addressed by Ko (for males) and Ma (for females). A child is referred to as Maung for males and Ma for females.

The naming system is usually based on the day which you were born, meaning Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday ... etc ... Here are some of the Myanmar characters that are used for naming respectively.

Burmese Names and their meanings

In Western cultures, you may find a person with the last name "Edison" (Edi+son) like Thomas Edison. That means son of Edi or Edward. Jefferson will mean "son of Jeffery".