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Part of August birthdays: how calendar conversion works
What famous August birthdays teach about identification
Famous August birthdays offer six examples of why identity, roles, and careful sourcing matter when building an accurate celebrity birthday list.
What to take away
- Tell two people apart with a preferred name plus an identifier, and use a role or field of activity as the qualifier before you reach for a date.
- A date comes last, used only when nothing else separates two records and a published source supports it.
- Six well-known August birthdays need no qualifier at all, because each name stands on its own.
- Two of those names share August 15, which shows that a date separates nobody.
- Where two sources disagree on a date, publish both and name each source beside its value.
Example: two people named Chris Evans
Two public figures share the name Chris Evans. One is the American film actor. The other is a British radio and television presenter. A list that prints the name and the month alone has identified neither person.
Two people named Chris Evans
Known for
- Chris Evans, first entry
- Lead roles in the Marvel films
- Chris Evans, second entry
- BBC Radio 2 and television hosting
Qualifier that separates
- Chris Evans, first entry
- Actor
- Chris Evans, second entry
- Presenter
Date needed
- Chris Evans, first entry
- No
- Chris Evans, second entry
- No
The qualifier does the work. It is short, public, and cheap to fix. A date does none of those things. The month is beside the point here; the work separates them. For related reading, see the August actors list.
[figure 1]
Identifier vs date of birth
Identifier
- Distinguishes two people
- With one name
- When a name changes
- Stays valid
- Publishing risk
- Safe to publish
- Correcting errors
- One place
- Across languages
- Links records
Date of birth
- Distinguishes two people
- Only if both known
- When a name changes
- Useless on its own
- Publishing risk
- A credential
- Correcting errors
- Every copy
- Across languages
- Links nothing
August birthdays whose names already identify them
Six names carry their own identification. The table gives dates commonly republished, but does not provide a source beside each value. IMDb entries and Wikipedia pages are editable, so treat them as leads to check, not citations; verify each date against a named source before publication.
| Name | Date commonly published | Why the name stands alone |
|---|---|---|
| Barack Obama | August 4, 1961 | One surname and one presidency in the list |
| Whitney Houston | August 9, 1963 | Singer with no rival of the same name |
| Ben Affleck | August 15, 1972 | Actor and director |
| Jennifer Lawrence | August 15, 1990 | Shares the day, not the identity |
| Kobe Bryant | August 23, 1978 | Basketball player |
| Michael Jackson | August 29, 1958 | Singer and dancer |
Affleck and Lawrence were born on the same August day, eighteen years apart. No reader mixes them up. A list sorted by date places them side by side and calls it a match. For a separate calendar resource, see the August birthdays overview.
A record kept in one country can count days differently from a record kept in another. Two sources can both be right and still print different dates.
Why a birth date is the last qualifier
A date fails as a qualifier in three ways. Thousands of people share it. Sources disagree about it. A wrong value copied into a template is hard to trace, because every copy hides the original error a little further.
A role fails in none of those ways. It stays valid when a name changes. It links records across languages and scripts. One edit fixes it everywhere the identifier appears.
A date is also a credential in other systems. It opens a benefits record, a medical file, or an age check at a door. Reprinting it to separate two names spends a private detail on a public job.
The question of who pays for publishing a date is separate from this identification example. A separate discussion is available in what the dates cost and who pays.
Where the method comes from
Authority control is the library practice behind the habit. One preferred form of a name is established, every variant points to it, and every record about a work points at the same heading. The heading is the identity. The name is one attribute of it.
The Virtual International Authority File links national files by matching records that appear to describe the same person. It issues one identifier across them, so a person with different preferred forms in different languages resolves to a single entity.
Catalogers add a qualifier only when contents cannot separate two records, and they pick the narrowest one that works. A full date comes last, with a documented basis behind it.
Five steps for a list builder
Here is the method reduced to five moves.
[figure 2]
Applying the identifier rule
- Identify entries by what they are known for
- Separate collisions with least personal qualifier
- Keep identity in one record, refer to it
- Publish the identifier, not the credential
- State the inclusion rule so boundaries show
- Write the preferred name once in a record, then refer to that record instead of copying details into every mention.
- Add the identifier you already hold, such as the person's own page or a catalogue ID.
- Add a role or field of activity as the qualifier.
- Reach for a date only if steps two and three still leave two records that look identical.
- Record the source beside any date you keep, so the next editor can check it.
None of the five steps depends on the person being famous. For a separate application to sports records, see the checked August athlete list.
