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How old is Guinan in Star Trek: The Next Generation?

This post gives an age for her father, but not for her.

She shows up on Earth back in 1893 in San Francisco in the two-part episode, Time's Arrow. She also shows up in the movie, Star Trek: Generations, which was set back in Captain Kirk's time. Neither of those gives her age.

Looking for a canon answer here.

2 Answers 2

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I can't find an exact age, but with some assumptions it can be narrowed down. In Rascals (ST:TNG season 6), set in 2369, we have the following conversation:

"Look at these fragments. They're… they're very nearly in perfect condition, and yet they're seven hundred years old."

"So is my father."

— Picard and Guinan

700 may not be a precise figure, but assuming Guinan is rounding, he's nearer 700 than 800. If we also assume he didn't have children before age 20 (again, nothing to confirm but a life expectancy of centuries – seems plausible). This makes her 730 as an upper bound. As @ruakh points out in the comments, if she was 700+ herself, she would likely use herself as the comparator and not her father, so she's under 700.

In 1893 she is an adult and not on her own world. She comes across as having some life experience; even with the knowledge of an advanced race she doesn't seemed fazed by the experience. This makes her at least 500 by the time of TNG.

Non-canon novel 'The buried age' https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/The_Buried_Age suggests she is on Earth after spending her 'early 100s' travelling – this would put the lower estimate at around 600; this also seems more in keeping with her personality and experience, but I can't find a canon reference.

Best estimate 600–700.

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    Guinan's mother is told to be about 100 years younger than her father. Guinan herself must have been born after her mother became a full grown adult herself, so I would lower your estimation by 100 years. Which would be in line with my own :)
    – Sekhemty
    Commented May 17, 2020 at 8:52
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    Interesting- I can find that statement on Memory Alpha, but the transcript for the episode it references doesn't seem to make that statement? Agree that if verified it would drop the upper bound to the 570-670 range.
    – Michael
    Commented May 17, 2020 at 13:07
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    I think that "So is my father" already implies that Guinan herself is not 700 years old -- if she were, she would just say "So am I."
    – ruakh
    Commented May 17, 2020 at 23:21
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    It also implies that her father is in excellent health, great condition at nearly 700 years old. This tells us something about life expectancy and aging in appearance.
    – livresque
    Commented May 18, 2020 at 0:12
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    I think that's just based on the fact she is known to be alive in the late 19th century - it puts an absolute limit on how young she could be.
    – Michael
    Commented May 18, 2020 at 11:40
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About 550 years old.

Memory alpha gives two loose timeframes for the birthdates of her parents: her father was born before the 17th century, while her mother before the 18th.

Guinan herself is told to have been born "sometime before the late 19th century", and we see her as a full-grown adult in 1893.

Given the birthdate of her mother (the youngest of her parents) during the 1700's and Guinan being adult at the end of the 1800's, if we take a middle point between these two dates we can loosely assume her to be born in the early 1800's.

Given that Star Trek: The Next Generation is set during the 2360's, the difference between this date and the early 1800's is more or less 550, which can be assumed to be a fair estimation at least for the order of magnitude.