Home / Blog / Lifetime Blueprint
LIFETIME BLUEPRINT
What Is a 40th Birthday Called?
The short answer: A 40th birthday does not have an official name. Ruby is the fortieth wedding anniversary, not the birthday, and the confusion comes from people borrowing anniversary names. Informally it gets called the big four-oh, a milestone birthday, or the start of the fabulous forties.
What it actually marks is more useful than any name: the first birthday where most people ask whether the life they set up is the one they want.
Why people think it has a name
Anniversaries have a full set: silver for 25, ruby for 40, golden for 50. Birthdays borrowed golden for 50 and left the rest. So ruby gets attached to a 40th birthday by association, and it is not wrong to use it, just not traditional. The same applies to a 45th, which has no name either, and a 50th, which is the golden birthday by common usage.
What a 40th birthday is actually called
The big four-oh, mostly. A milestone birthday, formally. Over the hill, by people who are not there yet. Forty and fabulous or the fabulous forties on cards and cakes. None of it is official and all of it is fine. The phrase to reach for depends entirely on whether the person turning forty is laughing about it.
The thing it marks
The forties are when many people first ask whether they are living the life they set up in their twenties, and whether that life is still the one they want. The cliché calls it a midlife crisis. In practice it is more often a midlife audit: a quiet look at the commitments made a decade ago and a decision about which ones still fit.
What to do with it
The honest answer to a 40th is not a party, though have the party. It is a snapshot: where health, work, money, family and the rest actually stand at forty, written down, so that fifty has something to be compared against. Related: gifts for someone turning 40 if you are buying, and planning a life by decades if the birthday is yours.
Lifetime Blueprint
A hardcover life-design system: eight domains scored across the decades, reflections on every era, and letters to the people who come after.
What is a 40th birthday called for a man?
The same as for anyone: the big four-oh or a milestone birthday. There is no gendered name and no official one. Ruby is the fortieth anniversary and is sometimes borrowed for the birthday.
What is a 45th birthday called?
Nothing official. Like the 40th, it has no traditional name. The only birthday with a widely used name is the 50th, called golden by association with the golden anniversary.
What is a 40th birthday called for a woman?
The same as for a man: the big four-oh or a milestone birthday, often dressed up as forty and fabulous. There is no official or gendered name; ruby belongs to the fortieth wedding anniversary and gets borrowed for birthdays.
More on Lifetime Blueprint
- Your Twenties: The Decade of Compounding Choices
- Your Thirties: The Building Decade, When Time Starts to Feel Finite
- Your Forties Are a Recalibration, Not a Crisis
- Your Fifties: The Distillation Decade, Subtraction Over Addition
- Why Most People Will Never Write Their Life Down
The method behind every book
- Which 365-Day Book Should I Start With? A One-Minute Guide
- What Is a No Zero Day? The Rule That Saves a Bad Week
- What Is a Realistic Morning Routine? Two Minutes, Not Two Hours
All articles about Lifetime Blueprint → · The book page → · All the books →
written by the author, at the kitchen table, after work.