Year of the Fire Rabbit
The Year of the Fire Rabbit falls in 1927, 1987, and 2047. The animal sets the character, and the Fire element colors it: caution and good taste plus brilliance, passion, and visibility. It is a yin year, meaning calmer and more inward-looking.
Who Was Born in This Year
People born in 1987 (as well as in 1927 and, in the future, in 2047) belong to the “Rabbit” sign with the “Fire” element.
Important: the Chinese year begins around February 4. People born in January or early February 1987 belong to the previous year of the cycle — check with the calculator.
Personality
The sign’s core quality is caution and good taste. Strength: the ability to sidestep conflict without losses. Weak spot: avoiding difficult conversations.
The Fire element adds brilliance, passion, and visibility, while also heightening impulsiveness and speeding up burnout. The result is a person whose caution works quietly and inwardly: they act more slowly but more steadily.
The same combination applies to the year itself: it runs calmly and favors home, relationships, and anything that calls for tact. Fire, meanwhile, heightens the general lack of restraint and speeds up burnout.
The Year's Element and Color
The year’s element is Fire, and its colors are red and crimson. Polarity: yin (receptive; odd-numbered years of the cycle).
In Chinese tradition, the color of a year is the color of its element, not a “trendy shade”: it is fixed unambiguously and nobody chooses it. More on the element’s properties is on its own page.
Compatibility
Compatibility is determined by the animal, not the element. The best partners for the “Rabbit” sign are the signs of its trine; the most difficult match is the opposite sign.
All 78 pairs are covered in Chinese zodiac compatibility, and the sign’s own profile is on its own page.
Years of This Sign
Each animal–element combination recurs once every 60 years — that is the full Chinese cycle, known as jiazi. That is why the Year of the Fire Rabbit falls in 1927, 1987, and 2047, and the next one will come only sixty years after the last.
The full 60-year table, with years and elements.