How did people born "BC" know what year they were born?

Question

Since they had no idea when Christ would be born, what year did they use for their birthdate?

Answer 1

OMG, you have to be kidding me.

There are calendars used now and/or in the past by:
Mayans
Greeks
Chinese
Hebrews
Japanese (based on which Emperor is in power)

Right now in China it is like the year 5,000 something, the Jewish calendar is well beyond 3,000 I think. The whole world doesn't revolve around Jesus.

Answer 2

Our current calendar is actually not that old. It wasn't implemented in the United States until the late 18th century. Keep in mind that the months of July and August were named for Julius and Augustus Cesar, so time keeping has been evolving over the centuries. People born in what we call B.C. (or more politically correctly B.C.E.-Before the Common Era) had their own calendars so they would have had some idea when they were born although I doubt birthdays then had the same significance as they do now.

Answer 3

In most places, they would count the years since some important local event: "It is the sixth year of Emperor So-and-so's reign," or "The year after General Whatsisface captured the Big City on the River." And as many other posters have pointed out, there were a number of formal calenders in use, though many of them were religious in nature, and probably weren't used much in everyday life.

Answer 4

The use of ad and bc is relatively recent, and did not start in 1 ad. In other calendars, the calendar begins with each king, an important king, the foundation of a city, etc.

Answer 5

First of all, BC wasn't used until many years after BC was over. And to answer your question, they often didn't know what year they were born because their parents didn't keep track.

Answer 6

This has to be one of the dumbest questions I have seen posted for a long time!
The civilisations before BCE had their own methods of assessing the passing of years and a variety of solar and lunar calenders.
It is only the Western Christianised societies that adopted the use of BC or BCE and AD to denote eras.
Do you actually write AD after your birth-date?

Answer 7

All civilisations have their own calendar. The Romans dated theirs 'from the founding of the city' (which, without checking, was about 730BC in western Chriistian reckoning). Both Islam and Judiasm have there own calendars. You must lean not to be so Western-Christiano-centric. There are many other cultures

Answer 8

.... ok, in china, before we started using AD or BC thing in mid 1900s, we use the name of the emperor then a number to represent how long he's been in power. the same year system is still used in taiwan, it co-exists with the western year numbers.
and, how old are you, kid? might want to stop doing all your studying at chuch.

Answer 9

There are other calendars that go back thousands of years.

* Anno Domini Christian Era
* Aztec Calendar
* Bahá'í calendar
* Bengali calendar
* Buddhist calendar
* Calendar of saints
* Chinese calendar
* Christian calendar
* Darian calendar
* Discordian calendar
* Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar
* Ethiopian calendar
* French Republican Calendar
* Gregorian calendar
* Hebrew calendar
* Hindu calendar
* Samvat
* Iranian calendar
* Islamic calendar
* Japanese calendar
* Julian calendar
* Liturgical year
* Maya calendar
* Malayalam calendar
* Nanakshahi calendar (Sikh calendar)
* Pawukon calendar of Bali
* Perpetual calendar
* Runic calendar
* Wall calendar
* Zoroastrian calendar

Answer 10

they knew exactly what year they were born it, but it wasn't based on the calendar we know today.