Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin (born March 25, 1942, Memphis, United States, 22:30; died 2018), was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Best-known releases include I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, Lady Soul and Aretha Arrives. Franklin's honours include Grammy Legend Award, Kennedy Center Honors and Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance.
Aretha Franklin’s zodiac sign was Aries, Chinese zodiac was Water Horse, with Life Path 8 in numerology.
Aries, Chinese zodiac was 
Water Horse, with 
Life Path 8 in numerology.Your match with Aretha
Aretha Franklin’s AsterNym identity
The Radiant Strategist
Fire represents warmth, visibility and momentum. Fire-led charts are associated with enthusiasm, expression and the ability to encourage other people. Life Path 8 represents mastery: ambition, resources and turning sustained effort into visible results.
Fire Day Master (BaZi) × cardinal Sun × Life Path 8, on the mental plane.
How common is the name Aretha in the U.S.?
—
outside the current top list
~5,656
Americans share it since 1900
1968
its peak year
In 1942, 31 American girls were registered Aretha — 1,476th on the SSA's list that year.
US Social Security Administration public records
What Aretha’s name adds up to
Worked from the name as published, letter by letter.
3
Expression · expression and voice
8
Soul Urge · achievement
4
Personality · steady, dependable
The name opens on A (1) and closes on A (1).
Pythagorean letter values · A=1 to I=9, then J=1 again
Aretha’s lucky numbers, colours and stones
Traditional correspondences, calculated not chosen.
Lucky numbers
8 · 2 · 3 · 7
Lucky colours
Blue & Black
Lucky day
Tuesday
Direction
↑ North
Season
winter
Stones
Aquamarine, Red Coral, Aquamarine
Flower constellation
🌼 Daffodil · 🌺 Red Dahlia · 🪷 Lotus
Sunlit yellow · Crimson · Soft pink
Eight Mansions · Kua number
Kua 3, trigram Zhen 震, East group. Best direction South, worst Southwest.
A different tradition from the Direction above, and a different question: feng shui reads it from the solar year 1942, which turns at Li Chun rather than at New Year, and from sex, which Wikidata records as female. Work out your own →
The record
What sets Aretha apart
Elton John (1947) and Sarah Jessica Parker (1965) share the birthday in another year, so the sun sits where it sits here.
- Citizenship
- United States
- Languages
- English
What the chart says
Aretha, according to the stars
Core essence
Aretha leads with the body. First in, first to speak, first to say the thing everyone was thinking, and honestly a little surprised when the room needed a second to catch up. The core of Aretha is courage that does not look like courage from the inside, it just looks like Tuesday. They would rather be wrong fast than right slowly, and it is why people follow them.
The vibe
Underneath, Aretha is all feeling, tide in and tide out. The Moon in Cancer means moods are weather, real and passing, and memory is long: they keep every kindness and, quietly, every slight. What Aretha needs to feel safe is a soft place to land that is not going anywhere. Give them that and they give you everything.
How Aretha wants to be loved
Aretha wants to be loved as a friend first, and then as everything. Venus in Aquarius needs freedom, conversation and a partner who finds their strangeness delightful. Rules and jealousy make them cold; acceptance makes them devoted. Let Aretha be fully themselves and they will never want to be anywhere else.
How Aretha creates
How Aretha makes things happen: they hold the flame steady. A Yin Fire day master is the candle, the lamp, the light that is close and personal rather than blazing. Aretha creates intimacy, one room, one conversation, one person made to feel seen. Moody when the fuel runs low, magnetic when it does not.
Instinct
Instinct: Aretha is free-spirited, a Horse year, and their gut reaction is to run toward the new thing. Energetic, warm, popular, honest to a fault, and impossible to keep indoors. The Water year softens it: intuitive, adaptable, feeling their way through people.
Purpose
Purpose: Life Path 8 is the powerhouse. Aretha is here to build something big and run it well: money, influence, a body of work with their name on it. Ambitious, capable, generous when winning, and learning that power is for lifting people.
Triggers
Triggers: being bored, and being talked over. Mars in Gemini fights with words and wins, then forgets it happened. Aretha scatters energy across three projects at once and somehow finishes two. The trick is choosing the argument worth having.
Computed from Aretha's birth date. Working below.
Where Aretha sits
Six lines
Aretha’s dot comes from the chart; yours is where you put it.
You may draw energy from a wide network, many doors, lightly held.
You may leap first and adjust as you go. Waiting can feel like losing momentum.
You likely share some feelings openly and keep others to yourself.
You may want to resolve tension the moment it appears, rather than let it sit.
You likely balance practical steps with room to imagine further.
You may feel connection fast. Chemistry can arrive before the details do.
Tap each line where you sit.
All twelve of yours, from your birth date →✦ A real star from their birth sky
Dedicate a star to Aretha Franklin
Three stars chosen from the real sky above Memphis on the night they were born. Choose the story that connects you.
Read from the sky above Memphis at 22:30, Aretha Franklin’s documented birth time. Dedications are commemorative and confer no ownership of stars.
The sky over Memphis that night
Computed for 35.15°N, at the documented birth time.
At the birth hour the star closest to straight overhead at Memphis was Tania Australis, in Ursa Major, 80.1° up.
The brightest star above the horizon was Sirius in Canis Major, and 104 catalog stars were up in all.
Memphis sits at 35.1°N, low enough that no headline star is circumpolar: everything bright rises and sets there.
Nothing below −54.9° declination clears the horizon at this latitude, so Rigil Kentaurus, Achernar, Hadar, Acrux, Mimosa and Toliman were never visible from Memphis on any night.
Sun 38° below the horizon, Moon up and 61% lit at first quarter.
The name and the places
- Born in
- Memphis, United States
- Lived in
- Memphis
Wikidata records Memphis as Aretha Franklin's home, Memphis among them.
The death is recorded at Detroit, Wayne County in 2018.
A documented birth time makes an astrocartography map possible. Shared Places will draw one for your own chart.
What Aretha's birth time unlocks
Two systems need the hour and cannot be computed without it.
Zi Wei Dou Shu · Life Palace
The Enforcer 廉貞, The Treasurer 天府 in 辰
Bureau 火六局 · Body Palace in Relationships
Zi Wei Dou Shu explained →Chart pattern score
10 / 100 · Reassuringly normal
An AsterNym index built from stelliums, yods, grand crosses and chart shape. It is not a population percentile, and a high score is not a better chart.
Score your own chart →Aretha Franklin at a glance
Aries Sun
Aries SunRuns at it head first.
Aretha Franklin's Sun was in Aries at the documented birth time.
What Aries means →Water Horse
Water HorseOpen road, open heart.
Aretha Franklin was born on March 25, 1942, which falls in a Water Horse year of the Chinese calendar.
What the Horse means →Life Path 8
Life Path 8Power, and the bill for it.
Aretha Franklin's birth date, March 25, 1942, reduces to Life Path 8 under the numerology method AsterNym uses.
What Life Path 8 means →What stands out in Aretha’s chart
- Four of the ten planets sit in angular houses in Aretha Franklin's timed chart: Venus in the 4th house, Saturn in the 7th house, Uranus in the 7th house and Pluto in the 10th house.
- The tightest major aspect in Aretha Franklin's timed chart is Uranus trine Neptune, with an orb of under 1°.
- This chart has an even Earth/Air emphasis, with three planets in each.
- Aretha Franklin combines a Fire Day Master in BaZi with a cardinal Sun and a Life Path on the mental plane, the combination AsterNym calls The Radiant Strategist.
Aretha’s birth chart
Computed from the documented birth time (From a birth certificate, birth record or family bible, the most reliable class.), with whole-sign houses from the Ascendant.
Whole-sign houses from the Ascendant.
Placements
Tap one to light it on the wheel.
The working: aspects, Chiron and the asteroids, dominant planets and configurationsshow
Aspects, tightest first
UranustrineNeptuneapplying · 0.9° orb
Aretha’s need for freedom flows straight into their imagination. A talent so smooth it can go unnoticed.
SuntrinePlutoseparating · 1.3° orb
Aretha’s core identity flows straight into their depths. Effortless, which is exactly why it gets taken for granted.
MercurysquareMarsseparating · 1.9° orb
Aretha’s mind grinds against their drive. The angle that irritates, and the one that teaches.
MercurysquareJupiterapplying · 2.0° orb
SaturnconjunctionUranusapplying · 2.5° orb
SaturntrineNeptuneapplying · 3.4° orb
MarsconjunctionJupiterapplying · 3.9° orb
MoontrineMercuryseparating · 4.4° orb
VenussquareSaturnapplying · 4.8° orb
VenustrineJupiterseparating · 5.1° orb
SunoppositionNeptuneseparating · 6.5° orb
Chart signature
Elements
- Fire2 of 10
- Earth3 of 10
- Air3 of 10
- Water2 of 10
Modalities
- Cardinal2 of 10
- Fixed4 of 10
- Mutable4 of 10
Counted across the ten planets by sign.
Aretha’s Chiron, Ceres, Eros, Hygiea and Lilith
What astrologers make of these five.
⚷ Chiron ℞Leo 8°23′ · House 10
centaur (2060) · the wound and what is learnt from it
⚳ CeresPisces 3°39′ · House 5
dwarf planet (1) · how a person nurtures and wants to be nurtured
♡ ErosCapricorn 29°38′ · House 3
near-Earth asteroid (433) · what draws them and how they desire
⚕ HygieaGemini 5°04′ · House 8
main-belt asteroid (10) · health, routine and what keeps them well
⚸ Black Moon LilithGemini 12°42′ · House 8
mean lunar apogee · the part that refuses to be tamed
Aspects to the asteroids and Lilith
- Hygiea sextile Sun 0.2°
- Black Moon Lilith square Mercury 0.4°
- Eros trine Neptune 1.3°
- Hygiea sextile Pluto 1.5°
- Black Moon Lilith conjunction Mars 1.5°
- Eros trine Uranus 2.2°
- Black Moon Lilith conjunction Jupiter 2.4°
- Chiron sextile Mars 2.8°
Aretha’s dominant planets
1. ♂ Mars7.5 pts
rules the Sun sign, Aries; traditionally rules the Ascendant, Scorpio; disposes Sun; 2 major aspects
2. ☽ Moon6 pts
rules the Moon sign, Cancer; in its own sign, Cancer; 1 major aspect
3. ☿ Mercury6 pts
disposes Mars, Jupiter, Neptune; 3 major aspects
Configurations in Aretha’s chart
No stellium, grand trine, T-square, grand cross, yod or kite — the common case.
Minor aspects
semi-sextile, semi-square, quintile, sesquiquadrate, biquintile, quincunx.
- Mercury quintile Saturn 0.2°
- Sun semi-square Venus 0.3°
- Moon quintile Neptune 1.1°
Aretha’s houses
| House | Sign | Ruler | Planets | Themes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Scorpio | Pluto in Leo, house 10 | empty | self, body, how you arrive |
| 2 | Sagittarius | Jupiter in Gemini, house 8 | empty | money, possessions, self-worth |
| 3 | Capricorn | Saturn in Taurus, house 7 | empty | mind, siblings, the local world |
| 4 | Aquarius | Uranus in Taurus, house 7 | Venus | home, family, roots |
| 5 | Pisces | Neptune in Virgo, house 11 | Mercury | creativity, romance, play |
| 6 | Aries | Mars in Gemini, house 8 | Sun | work, habits, health |
| 7 | Taurus | Venus in Aquarius, house 4 | Saturn, Uranus | partnership, marriage, open rivals |
| 8 | Gemini | Mercury in Pisces, house 5 | Mars, Jupiter | shared resources, intimacy, transformation |
| 9 | Cancer | Moon in Cancer, house 9 | Moon | belief, travel, higher learning |
| 10 | Leo | Sun in Aries, house 6 | Pluto | career, reputation, public life |
| 11 | Virgo | Mercury in Pisces, house 5 | Neptune | friends, community, the future |
| 12 | Libra | Venus in Aquarius, house 4 | empty | the inner world, rest, what is hidden |
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12More people like Aretha
Born in United States
- Barry DillerAmerican businessman (born 1942)
- Samuel R. DelanyAmerican author and literary critic (born 1942)
- Muhammad AliAmerican boxer
- Marsha MasonAmerican actress (born 1942)
- Jon FranklinAmerican science writer
- Sandra DeeAmerican actress and model
More charts like Aretha’s
Fellow Aries suns
- Glenn HowertonAmerican actor
- Victoria GunvalsonAmerican reality television personality and businesswoman
- Marilu HennerAmerican actress (born 1952)
Born in Horse years
- Ryan HigaAmerican Internet personality and actor
- Ben SheltonAmerican tennis player
- Iman ShumpertAmerican basketball player
Also born on March 25
- Elton John1947
- Sarah Jessica Parker1965
- Mikey Madison1999
- Lee Pace1979
- Big Sean1988
- Casey Neistat1981
Fellow Yin Fire day masters
- Pierce BrosnanIrish actor
- Rita HayworthAmerican actress
- Aamir KhanIndian actor
Other Aries Horse charts
- Tommy SmithNew Zealand footballer
- Taliese FuagaAmerican football player
- Tress WayAmerican football player (born 1990)
- Malachi CorleyAmerican football player
Other Radiant Strategists
- Nelly KordaAmerican golfer
- Jennifer LienAmerican actress
- Ethan SupleeAmerican actor
- Christopher LloydAmerican actor (born 1938)
Other Scorpio risings with documented times
- Diana RossAmerican singer and actress
- James FrancoAmerican actor
- Jessica SimpsonAmerican singer and actress
- Claudia SchifferGerman model
Famous people with Life Path 8
- Bert LahrAmerican actor
- Carrie HennAmerican actress
- Millard MitchellAmerican actor
From the journal: Inner, outer and secret animals: the Four Pillars connection · The twelve Day Officers, and how Chinese date selection works
Aretha’s cards
Computed from March 25, 1942. Tap to flip.
Birth tarot card
The StarAsterNym identity card
The Radiant StrategistWestern zodiac
AriesChinese zodiac
Horse 午Life Path
8 · Achiever♂ Ruled by Mars
Iron Fe
The working: BaZi pillarsshow
BaZi pillars
Day Master: yin Fire.
Year
壬
yang Water
午
Horse
Fire
roots & early life
Month
癸
yin Water
卯
Rabbit
Wood
work & drive
Day
day master
丁
yin Fire
丑
Ox
Earth
you & partnership
Hour
辛
yin Metal
亥
Pig
Water
later life & legacy
Where this comes from, and how it is worked out
Aretha’s birth date and birthplace come from Wikidata Q125121 (CC0), as do the occupations, works and awards above. The birth time is rated AA on the Rodden scale, the astrological convention for how well evidenced a birth time is: from a birth certificate, birth record or family bible, the most reliable class. From Astro-Databank (Rodden AA). Entries are matched to Wikidata by entity id rather than by name, kept at day precision, and dropped where sources disagree on the date.
Tropical zodiac, whole-sign houses, modern rulers. Aspects on the western_v1 orb policy; minor ones at 1.5° to 2.5°, skipped where a major already holds. Minor bodies from JPL Horizons heliocentric vectors, Lilith as mean apogee. Dominance is an AsterNym score — rulerships, dispositors, angularity, aspect count — so other methods can name a different leader.
Portrait by Atlantic Records (Life time: Published before 1978 without a copyright notice), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
The same Aretha Franklin at Wikipedia, arethafranklin.net, IMDb, Instagram, X, YouTube and MusicBrainz.
Roster last reviewed September 10, 2026. The full method: how it works.
Traditional interpretations, not facts or predictions, and not endorsed by Aretha Franklin.
Quick answers about Aretha Franklin’s chart
- What zodiac sign was Aretha Franklin?
- Aretha Franklin was an Aries: born March 25, 1942, which puts the Sun in Aries at the documented birth time.
- What was Aretha Franklin's Chinese zodiac animal?
- The Horse, with the Water element, from the Chinese lunar year of the March 25, 1942 birth.
- What time was Aretha Franklin born?
- 22:30 local time in Memphis, United States, per Astro-Databank (Rodden AA) (Rodden rating AA).
- What was Aretha Franklin's rising sign?
- Scorpio rising, calculated from the documented 22:30 birth time in Memphis, United States (Rodden rating AA: from a birth certificate, birth record or family bible, the most reliable class.).
- What was Aretha Franklin's Life Path number?
- Life Path 8, calculated in numerology.
- What was Aretha Franklin's Chiron sign?
- Chiron in Leo at 8°, in the tenth house. Position from JPL Horizons.
- Where was Aretha Franklin's Black Moon Lilith?
- Mean Black Moon Lilith in Gemini at 12°, in the eighth house. This is the mean lunar apogee; the osculating Lilith some tables use can sit up to 30° away.
- What was Aretha Franklin's dominant planet?
- Mars, on AsterNym's dominance score (7.5 points: rules the Sun sign, Aries; traditionally rules the Ascendant, Scorpio; disposes Sun; 2 major aspects). Moon is second and Mercury third. Other sites weight rulerships and aspects differently and can name a different leader.
