Birthdays Today

July 27, 2026

Birthdays Today: July 27

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Fifty-seven living people we could verify share today's birthday, from baseball superstar Alex Rodriguez, turning 51, and SNL favorite Maya Rudolph, turning 54, to martial-arts icon Donnie Yen, turning 63, Game of Thrones' Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, turning 56, and a remarkable 1990 cohort of five notables across five completely different fields all turning 36 on this exact day.

The headliners

Alex Rodriguez turns 51 today, and two decades of dominance will do that to a résumé. Born July 27, 1975 in Manhattan and raised in Miami, he was the first overall pick of the 1993 MLB draft at seventeen, debuted in the majors at eighteen, and over twenty-two seasons with the Mariners, Rangers, and Yankees piled up 696 home runs, 3,000-plus hits, three MVP awards, and a 2009 World Series ring. Here is the stat that still sounds invented: he is the only player in MLB history to combine 600-plus homers, 2,000-plus runs batted in, 2,000-plus runs scored, 3,000-plus hits, and 300-plus stolen bases. Since retiring he has become a serious businessman, co-owning the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves and chairing Presidente beer. A baseball immortal who now signs checks in three sports.

Maya Rudolph turns 54 today, and few comedians have stayed so reliably in the cultural conversation. She joined the Saturday Night Live cast in 2000, broke through in films like Bridesmaids, and won an Emmy for her scene-stealing Kamala Harris impression. The genuinely surprising detail is in her genes: her mother was Minnie Riperton, the singer whose 1975 falsetto smash "Lovin' You" went to number one worldwide. Riperton died when Maya was just six. Rudolph also voices the Hormone Monstress on Big Mouth, a role that has won her four Emmys, and in 2024 Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Comedy royalty, born to music royalty.

Donnie Yen turns 63 today, and he is the martial-arts movie icon who turned the Wing Chun grandmaster Ip Man) into a global franchise before crossing into Hollywood with Rogue One, xXx: Return of Xander Cage, and John Wick: Chapter 4. Born July 27, 1963 in Guangdong and raised in Boston, he landed his first starring role at twenty in Drunken Tai Chi. The most endearing detail about him is his mom: Bow Sim-mark is a celebrated martial-arts grandmaster who ran her own academy in Boston and used to drag young Donnie out of bed to train before school. "After all these years, my mom can still kick my butt," he has admitted. A screen fighter who learned everything at home.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau turns 56 today, and to a global audience he will always be Jaime Lannister, the conflicted knight he played across all eight seasons of Game of Thrones, a performance that earned two Emmy nominations. Born July 27, 1970 in the small Danish town of Rudkøbing, he broke through at home in the 1994 thriller Nightwatch and made his American debut in Black Hawk Down). The fun surprise is who he married: his wife Nukâka is a former Miss Greenland, and her father is a prominent Greenlandic politician, making Coster-Waldau something of an honorary Greenlander. Off-screen he has been a UNDP Goodwill Ambassador since 2021, advocating for gender equality and climate action. A Danish star with an unlikely Arctic family.

Jordan Spieth turns 33 today, and his 2015 season remains one of the great runs in golf. Born July 27, 1993 in Dallas, he was a prodigy who won his first PGA Tour event at nineteen and reached world number one at twenty-two. That year he won the Masters, tying Tiger Woods' 1997 scoring record at 18-under, then took the U.S. Open, becoming the youngest U.S. Open champion since Bobby Jones in 1923. He added a third major at the 2017 Open Championship. After a long winless stretch he returned to the winner's circle in 2021 and now owns 13 PGA Tour titles. Three majors before thirty, and still only thirty-three.

Cassandra Clare turns 53 today, and she built one of the most successful empires in young-adult fantasy. Born Judith Rumelt on July 27, 1973 in Tehran, Iran, to American parents, she is the author behind The Mortal Instruments, the bestselling series that began with City of Bones in 2007 and grew into a sprawling Shadowhunter universe of novels, a film, and a television series. The surprise is where she began: she was born in Iran, where her father was teaching, and her maternal grandfather was film producer Max Rosenberg. She spent her childhood moving between Switzerland, England, France, and Los Angeles before settling into a writing life in Massachusetts. A fantasy world-builder who started life in Tehran.

One coincidence worth pausing on before the roll call: five notables were born on this exact day in 1990, all turning 36, across five completely different fields. Bollywood's Kriti Sanon, country-pop singer Cheyenne Kimball, reality racer Nick Hogan, Peruvian footballer Paolo Hurtado, and Taiwanese-American figure skater Stephen Li-Chung Kuo all share July 27, 1990.

Also celebrating today

Screen and stage

Music

Comedy

Sports

Wrestling, television, and beyond

If someone you love shares today's date, tell them. Birthdays are the one holiday everyone gets.

That’s the reading for this issue.