João Marinho Neto spent his 114th birthday this week doing something only one other living man could fully appreciate: trading handwritten signs with someone who knows exactly what the occasion feels like. On October 5, Marinho Neto, who lives in Ceará, Brazil, and Ken Weeks, who lives in New South Wales, Australia, each turned a year older — Marinho Neto to 114, Weeks to 113 — and used the day to send each other birthday greetings, according to Guinness World Records, which recognizes Marinho Neto as the world's oldest living man and Weeks as the second-oldest.
The two were born exactly 365 days apart, so their birthdays — and now their greetings — fall on the same October date every year. Each posed for a photo holding a homemade sign addressed to his 'birthday twin,' with the images shared by their families and by LongeviQuest, the research group that verifies supercentenarian ages for Guinness World Records.
Marinho Neto, born in 1912 in Maranguape, Ceará, was confirmed as the world's oldest man in late 2024 and is now marking his second birthday holding the title — the 236th-oldest person ever recorded and only the ninth man in history to reach 114. He is Brazil's oldest-ever male resident. LongeviQuest's chief executive, Ben Meyers, said reaching that age as a man is unusually rare, since men typically die younger than women at extreme old age. Marinho Neto has six living children, 22 grandchildren, 15 great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren, and has said his secret is keeping loved ones close.
He, Weeks and Japan's Hikaru Katō are now the only men alive who were born before World War I, a fact that underscores how few people reach these ages at all: only one woman, Britain's Ethel Caterham, who turned 117 earlier this year, and eight others are older than Marinho Neto among all living people.
A caveat: this detailed account traces to Guinness World Records' own reporting and its longevity-verification partner LongeviQuest; no independent outlet had separately confirmed the exchange at publication time, which is typical for supercentenarian milestones that the record-keeping organizations document directly.
What's next is, inevitably, more birthdays — and more signs. Marinho Neto's reign as the world's oldest man has already lasted one year and 314 days, the second-longest stretch in the title's past 13 years, and both men's families say they plan to keep marking October 5 together from opposite sides of the planet.