Bob Shaw
Bob Shaw (born December 31, 1931, Belfast, United Kingdom; died 1996), was an Irish science fiction writer. Shaw's honours include BSFA Award for Best Novel, Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer and BSFA Award for Best Short Fiction.
Bob Shaw’s zodiac sign was Capricorn, Chinese zodiac was Metal Goat, with Life Path 3 in numerology.
Capricorn, Chinese zodiac was 
Metal Goat, with 
Life Path 3 in numerology.Your match with Bob
Bob Shaw’s AsterNym identity
The Gilded Diplomat
Metal represents precision. Metal-led charts are associated with standards, boundaries, discernment and the ability to remove what is unnecessary. Life Path 3 represents expression: words, art, humour and making inner experience visible.
Metal Day Master (BaZi) × cardinal Sun × Life Path 3, on the emotional plane.
How common is the name Bob in the U.S.?
#9845
US rank in 2025
~93,308
Americans share it since 1880
1959
its peak year
The SSA recorded 2,318 American boys and 10 girls named Bob in 1931: 78th among boys and 2,778th among girls for the year.
US Social Security Administration public records
What Bob’s name adds up to
Worked from the name as published, letter by letter.
7
Expression · depth and research
7
Soul Urge · understanding
9
Personality · generous, worldly
The name opens on B (2) and closes on B (2). Two values tie for most repeated, 1 and 2: drive against tact.
Pythagorean letter values · A=1 to I=9, then J=1 again
Bob’s lucky numbers, colours and stones
Traditional correspondences, calculated not chosen.
Lucky numbers
3 · 2 · 7
Lucky colours
White & Gold
Lucky day
Saturday
Direction
← West
Season
autumn
Stones
Turquoise, Blue Sapphire, Rutilated Quartz
Flower constellation
🤍 Narcissus · 🤍 Camellia · 🤍 White Magnolia
Frost white · Ivory · Moonlight white
Eight Mansions · Kua number
Kua 2, trigram Kun 坤, West group. Best direction Northeast, worst East.
A different tradition from the Direction above, and a different question: feng shui reads it from the solar year 1931, which turns at Li Chun rather than at New Year, and from sex, which Wikidata records as male. Work out your own →
The record
What sets Bob apart
The BSFA Award for Best Novel came in 1975, when Bob Shaw was 44.
Bob Shaw was 20 when the work began in 1951.
Cause of death is recorded as cancer.
Wikipedia files Bob Shaw under Male short story writers from Northern Ireland, Aircraft designers from Northern Ireland and Science fiction writers from Northern Ireland.
Anthony Hopkins (1937) and Baron Waqa (1959) share the birthday in another year, so the sun sits where it sits here.
- Awards
- BSFA Award for Best Short Fiction (1988), BSFA Award for Best Novel (1975) and Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer (1979)
- Nominated for
- Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel and Hugo Award for Best Short Story
- Working from
- 1951
- Cause of death
- cancer
- Citizenship
- Ireland
- Languages
- English
- Wikipedia editions
- 21
What the chart says
Bob, according to the stars
Core essence
Bob is playing a longer game than everyone else at the table. The core of Bob is quiet ambition and a dry, private sense of humour that only their people get to see. They are the one who actually does the thing, and then does not mention it. Underneath the composure is someone who wants very badly to be proud of what they built.
How Bob wants to be loved
Bob 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 Bob be fully themselves and they will never want to be anywhere else.
How Bob creates
How Bob makes things happen: they cut to it. A Yang Metal day master is the sword, decisive, principled, allergic to nonsense. Bob creates by clarifying, by deciding, by being the one who says what the thing actually is. Sharp with themselves first. The work is remembering that not every problem needs a blade.
Instinct
Instinct: Bob is creative and kind, a Goat year, and their gut reaction is to make it beautiful. Artistic, gentle, easily moved, and the friend everyone confides in. The Metal year sharpens it: principled, determined, clear about what is right.
Purpose
Purpose: Life Path 3 is the creative. Bob is here to express, to make, to say the thing in a way nobody has said it before. Joy is the work: the writing, the performing, the making people laugh. The lesson is finishing what the spark started.
Triggers
Triggers: incompetence, and disrespect. Mars in Capricorn means Bob does not waste energy on anger; they use it. Controlled, strategic, relentless, the person who will outlast the problem. Cold when crossed, and quietly forgiving once you have earned it back.
Computed from Bob's birth date. Working below.
Where Bob sits
Six lines
Bob’s dot comes from the chart; yours is where you put it.
You likely balance a tight inner circle with a wider orbit you dip into.
You likely think things through before you act. Haste rarely feels safe.
You may wear your feelings openly. What you feel tends to show.
You likely handle some friction right away and let smaller things settle.
You may favor what's proven and workable over the untested idea.
You likely warm up at a pace that depends on the person and moment.
Tap each line where you sit.
All twelve of yours, from your birth date →✦ A real star from their birth night
Dedicate a star to Bob Shaw
Three stars chosen from the real sky above Belfast on the night they were born. Choose the story that connects you.
A 9 p.m. reference sky, not the birth minute. Dedications are commemorative and confer no ownership of stars.
The sky over Belfast that night
Computed for 54.60°N, 9 p.m. local sky.
Overhead at Belfast at 9 p.m. that evening: Miram of Perseus, within 4.2° of the exact zenith.
The brightest star above the horizon was Sirius in Canis Major, and 104 catalog stars were up in all.
At 54.6°N there are stars that never set at all. Vega, Capella and Deneb stay up year round.
Nothing below −35.4° declination clears the horizon at this latitude, so Canopus, Rigil Kentaurus, Achernar, Hadar, Acrux, Mimosa and Toliman were never visible from Belfast on any night.
The Moon, 52% lit at last quarter, had already set; the Sun sat 40° below the horizon.
The name and the places
- Born in
- Belfast, United Kingdom
The death is recorded at Manchester in 1996.
No birth time is on record, so no astrocartography map can be drawn for Bob Shaw: the lines move about fifteen degrees of longitude an hour. Shared Places can still draw yours.
How unusual Bob's chart is
Chart pattern score
60 / 100 · Unusual
3-planet stellium in Capricorn · Grand trine · T-square onto Uranus
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. Without a birth time the houses are left out of it.
Score your own chart →Bob Shaw in 15 seconds
Capricorn Sun
Capricorn SunAmbition wearing a plain coat.
Bob Shaw's Sun was in Capricorn for the whole of December 31, 1931, so no birth time is needed to settle it.
What Capricorn means →Metal Goat
Metal GoatKind, and quietly tough.
Bob Shaw was born on December 31, 1931, which falls in a Metal Goat year of the Chinese calendar.
What the Goat means →Life Path 3
Life Path 3Creative, loud, warm.
Bob Shaw's birth date, December 31, 1931, reduces to Life Path 3 under the numerology method AsterNym uses.
What Life Path 3 means →What stands out in Bob’s chart
- The tightest major aspect in Bob Shaw's date-only chart is Mars square Uranus, with an orb of under 1°.
- Three planets, Sun, Mars and Saturn, sit together in Capricorn, which astrologers call a stellium.
- Six of the ten planets fall in Cardinal signs, making Cardinal the strongest modality in this chart.
- Bob Shaw combines a Metal Day Master in BaZi with a cardinal Sun and a Life Path on the emotional plane, the combination AsterNym calls The Gilded Diplomat.
Bob’s birth chart
Reference chart · birth time unknown
Positions are checked across the whole date. The Moon ranges from 24° to 8° Virgo or Libra depending on the hour.
No birth time, so the houses are a solar chart: the Sun’s sign counts as house 1.
Placements
Tap one to light it on the wheel.
The working: aspects, Chiron and the asteroids, dominant planets and configurationsshow
Aspects across every possible birth time
stableSuntrineNeptune0.5° to 1.5° orb
Bob’s core identity flows straight into their imagination. Effortless, which is exactly why it gets taken for granted.
stableMarssquareUranus0.5° to 1.3° orb
Bob’s drive grinds against their need for freedom. The friction is lifelong. Worked with, it builds real strength.
stableMercurytrineJupiter1.7° to 1.8° orb
Bob’s mind flows straight into their growth. Effortless, which is exactly why it gets taken for granted.
stableSaturnoppositionPluto2.3° to 2.4° orb
stableMercurytrineUranus4.6° to 4.7° orb
stableMarsoppositionPluto4.6° to 5.4° orb
stableUranussquarePluto5.9° orb
stableJupitertrineUranus6.4° to 6.5° orb
stableMarsconjunctionSaturn7.0° to 7.7° orb
stableSunconjunctionMars7.4° to 7.6° orb
possibleMoontrineVenusorb from 0.1° to 11.9° depending on birth time
possibleSunsquareMoonorb from 0.8° to 13.8° depending on birth time
Chart signature
Elements
- Fire3 of 10
- Earth4 of 10
- Air2 of 10
- Water1 of 10
Modalities
- Cardinal6 of 10
- Fixed2 of 10
- Mutable2 of 10
Counted across the ten planets by sign: Earth leads this chart.
Bob’s Chiron, Ceres, Eros, Hygiea and Lilith
What astrologers make of these five, at noon values.
⚷ Chiron ℞Taurus 19°03′ (moves 0.03° over the day)
centaur (2060) · the wound and what is learnt from it
⚳ CeresSagittarius 18°23′ (moves 0.41° over the day)
dwarf planet (1) · how a person nurtures and wants to be nurtured
♡ ErosAquarius or Capricorn during this date
near-Earth asteroid (433) · what draws them and how they desire
⚕ Hygiea ℞Leo 25°39′ (moves 0.06° over the day)
main-belt asteroid (10) · health, routine and what keeps them well
⚸ Black Moon LilithAries 16°18′ (moves 0.11° over the day)
mean lunar apogee · the part that refuses to be tamed
Aspects to the asteroids and Lilith
- Black Moon Lilith square Mars 0.1°
- Black Moon Lilith conjunction Uranus 0.9°
- Ceres conjunction Mercury 1.7°
- Chiron sextile Pluto 2.3°
- Chiron trine Mars 2.7°
- Chiron square Jupiter 2.8°
- Ceres trine Uranus 2.9°
Bob’s dominant planets
1. ♄ Saturn9 pts
rules the Sun sign, Capricorn; in its own sign, Capricorn; disposes Sun, Mars; 2 major aspects
2. ♂ Mars5 pts
disposes Uranus; 4 major aspects
3. ♅ Uranus5 pts
disposes Venus; 4 major aspects
Configurations in Bob’s chart
Stellium in Capricorn · Sun, Mars, SaturnThree or more planets in one sign (four, or three with a luminary, by AsterNym's count): a concentration astrologers read as that sign's themes dominating the chart.
Grand trine · Mercury, Jupiter, UranusThree planets each 120° apart, a closed triangle of trines. Astrologers read it as ease and talent that can go unexercised.
T-square onto Uranus · Mars, Pluto, UranusAn opposition with a third planet squaring both ends. Read as a driving tension that resolves through the apex planet.
Minor aspects
semi-sextile, semi-square, quintile, sesquiquadrate, biquintile, quincunx.
- Mars biquintile Jupiter 0.5°
- Jupiter semi-sextile Pluto 0.5°
- Venus quincunx Neptune 0.8°
- Saturn sesquiquadrate Neptune 0.8°
- Mercury quincunx Pluto 1.2°
- Neptune semi-square Pluto 1.5°
- Sun semi-sextile Venus 1.8°
- Jupiter quincunx Saturn 1.8°
- Mercury semi-square Venus 1.9°
- Sun sesquiquadrate Jupiter 2.0°
More people like Bob
Other screenwriters
- Harold Pinter1930
- Miloš Forman1932
- Frank McCourt1930
- Michel Legrand1932
- Howard Sackler1929
- Debbie Reynolds1932
Born in United Kingdom
- Barry UnsworthEnglish novelist
- Elizabeth TaylorBritish-American actress
- John Hugheseditor, born 1930
- Michael SmithCanadian Nobel laureate in chemistry
- Joan PlowrightBritish actress
- Peter O'TooleBritish-Irish actor
More charts like Bob’s
Fellow Capricorn suns
- Tom Helmoreactor from England
- Ray BolgerAmerican actor
- Marlene DietrichGerman and American actress and singer
Born in Goat years
- Dinara NazarbayevaKazakhstani businesswoman
- Erik SelinSwedish billionaire property developer, and CEO
- Kelcy WarrenAmerican businessperson and board member, Chairman and CEO of Energy Transfer
Also born on December 31
- Anthony Hopkins1937
- Baron Waqa1959
- Hunter Schafer1998
- Diane von Fürstenberg1946
- Richie McCaw1980
- Gabby Douglas1995
Fellow Yang Metal day masters
- Darsheel Safarychild artist in Indian showbiz industry, famous for his portrayal of a dyslexic child in Taare Zameen Par
- Lianella CarellItalian actress, screenwriter, journalist
- Nicholas HammondAmerican actor
Other Capricorn Goat charts
- Carrie Ann InabaAmerican television personality, dancer, choreographer, actress, and singer
- Chad LoweAmerican actor and director
- Lin-Manuel MirandaAmerican songwriter and composer (born 1980)
- Luke MacfarlaneCanadian and American actor
Other Gilded Diplomats
- Eric DouglasSwedish financier
- Joe GebbiaAmerican businessman and a co-founder of Airbnb
- Patrizio BertelliItalian entrepreneur
- Wilhelm RöntgenGerman physicist
Famous people with Life Path 3
- Gia GiudiceAmerican reality television personality
- Emile HirschAmerican actor (born 1985)
- Hannah GodwinAmerican television personality
From the journal: What is a birth chart? How the chart is calculated · Is astrology real or fake?
Bob’s cards
Computed from December 31, 1931. Tap to flip.
Birth tarot card
The WorldAsterNym identity card
The Gilded DiplomatWestern zodiac
CapricornChinese zodiac
Goat 未Life Path
3 · Storyteller♄ Ruled by Saturn
Lead Pb
The working: BaZi pillarsshow
BaZi pillars
Day Master: yang Metal.
Year
辛
yin Metal
未
Goat
Earth
roots & early life
Month
庚
yang Metal
子
Rat
Water
work & drive
Day
day master
庚
yang Metal
申
Monkey
Metal
you & partnership
Where this comes from, and how it is worked out
Bob’s birth date and birthplace come from Wikidata Q649014 (CC0), as do the occupations, works and awards above. With no documented birth time this chart is rated X on the Rodden scale, the astrological convention for how well evidenced a birth time is. The banner above lists what that leaves out. 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, aspect count — so other methods can name a different leader.
The same Bob Shaw at Wikipedia.
Roster last reviewed September 10, 2026. The full method: how it works.
Traditional interpretations, not facts or predictions, and not endorsed by Bob Shaw.
Quick answers about Bob Shaw’s chart
- What zodiac sign was Bob Shaw?
- Bob Shaw was a Capricorn: born December 31, 1931, which puts the Sun in Capricorn for the whole of that day.
- What was Bob Shaw's Chinese zodiac animal?
- The Goat, with the Metal element, from the Chinese lunar year of the December 31, 1931 birth.
- What was Bob Shaw's Life Path number?
- Life Path 3, calculated in numerology.
- What was Bob Shaw's Chiron sign?
- Chiron in Taurus at 19°. Position from JPL Horizons.
- Where was Bob Shaw's Black Moon Lilith?
- Mean Black Moon Lilith in Aries at 16°. This is the mean lunar apogee; the osculating Lilith some tables use can sit up to 30° away.
- What was Bob Shaw's dominant planet?
- Saturn, on AsterNym's dominance score (9 points: rules the Sun sign, Capricorn; in its own sign, Capricorn; disposes Sun, Mars; 2 major aspects). Mars is second and Uranus third. Other sites weight rulerships and aspects differently and can name a different leader.
