年祝い: the Japanese celebrations of a long life
From 還暦 onwards, certain ages are marked with a celebration — a gathering, a gift, often a garment in a particular colour. These are congratulations on having arrived, in the same register as a wedding anniversary, and every one of their names is a pun on how the number itself is written.
| Celebration | 数え年 (counted age) | 満年齢 (completed age) | Colour | The name |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 還暦 (Kanreki) — a full sixty-year cycle completed | 数え年 61 | 満 60 | Red | 還 return, 暦 calendar: the sexagenary cycle has come back round to the stem and branch of the year of birth, so a full cycle of sixty is complete. |
| 古希 (Koki) — the celebration at 70 | 数え年 70 | 満 70 | Purple | From a line of Du Fu, 人生七十古来稀 — a life of seventy years has been rare since antiquity. 古 ancient, 希 rare. |
| 喜寿 (Kiju) — the celebration at 77 | 数え年 77 | 満 77 | Purple | The cursive form of 喜 (joy) is written 㐂, which reads as 七十七 — seventy-seven. |
| 傘寿 (Sanju) — the celebration at 80 | 数え年 80 | 満 80 | Yellow or gold | The abbreviated form of 傘 (umbrella) is 仐, which reads as 八十 — eighty. |
| 米寿 (Beiju) — the celebration at 88 | 数え年 88 | 満 88 | Yellow or gold | 米 (rice) takes apart into 八十八 — eighty-eight. |
| 卒寿 (Sotsuju) — the celebration at 90 | 数え年 90 | 満 90 | White | The abbreviated form of 卒 is 卆, which reads as 九十 — ninety. |
| 白寿 (Hakuju) — the celebration at 99 | 数え年 99 | 満 99 | White | 百 (hundred) with its top stroke 一 taken away leaves 白 (white): one short of 100. |
| 百寿 (Hyakuju) — the celebration at 100 | 数え年 100 | 満 100 | White or pink | 百 is simply one hundred. Also called 紀寿, 紀 being a century. |
Why there are two ages for each
These customs were defined in 数え年, the count in which a person is one at birth and everyone gains a year together at New Year. Japan has used 満年齢, completed years, as its standard count since 1950, and the celebrations have mostly followed — but not by converting the ages. The number is the pun, so the number is what got kept: 喜寿 is held at 77 whichever count is being used, and the two are a year apart.
還暦 is the exception, because its age is not a pun. It marks the completion of a full sexagenary cycle — sixty years of stems and branches, returning to the pair a person was born under — and that is 数え年 61, which is 満 60 exactly. The two counts name the same day. The sexagenary cycle table is the sixty years in question.
Where a family holds a celebration is therefore a real question with two defensible answers, and this site gives both rather than choosing.
The colours
The colour is worn or given — most famously the red 頭巾 and ちゃんちゃんこ, a cap and sleeveless jacket, presented at 還暦. Red is the colour of an infant's clothing, and the joke is affectionate: a full cycle has been completed, so one begins again.
The later celebrations move through purple, then yellow or gold, then white, and the associations are conventional rather than fixed — they vary by region, by family and by whoever is selling the jacket.
What this list is, and how it is meant
The ages, colours and etymologies above are held in this site's source as a typed list that both this page and the calculator read, so a description here and a figure there cannot come apart. The list runs from 還暦 to 百寿; further celebrations are observed beyond a hundred and are not listed, because practice past that point is thin enough that this site would be guessing.
These are living traditions and the tone of them matters. In Japanese they are congratulatory — 祝い is a celebration, and the greeting is one of congratulation. Rendered into flat English next to a progress bar they can read as a countdown, which is the opposite of what they are, so nothing on this page counts down to one, estimates the chance of reaching one, or treats the later ages as more remarkable than the people who reach them find them.
Prose last reviewed 2026-08-20.
Elsewhere
Equivalent celebrations are kept across East Asia — 還暦 is 환갑 (hwangap) in Korea and 花甲 (huājiǎ) in China, all turning on the same sixty-year cycle. The specific list above, with its puns on Japanese readings of the numerals, is Japanese; this site does not extend it to the others, because the puns do not travel and the customs around them differ.