Yesterday, I went to go visit a good friend who had just given birth to an adorable baby girl. As I held the newborn in my arms and chatted away with the proud (but tired) mom and dad, I couldn’t help but think about all the other women in my life who had given birth, or is about to give birth, within this 2-3 month period.
I also remembered how this time last year, as I was awaiting the birth of Aerin, I knew no less than five other women who were due within a month of me.
Needless to say, curiosity got the best of me, and as soon as I arrived home and I immediately fired up my laptop to look up common birth months.
And wouldn’t you know it? Just three months ago, NPR data journalist Matt Stiles posted a heavily-circulated (how did I miss it?) infographic of the most common birth dates in the United States.
You can also check out an interactive version of the chart here, where you can actually see the rank of each birth date as you hover over them.
The findings confirmed my suspicions, and what my friends and I have theorized all along. I mean, just LOOK at all those July – September birthdays! It’s plain to see that couples tend to do the deed more often during the colder months. 😉
You can also see that the last few days of December are pretty popular — I can only surmise that this is due to all the c-sections and inductions scheduled before the new year in order to qualify for the year’s tax credits.
Despite the fact that Claire’s birthday (Sept 30) — falls right within the “busy” months, I was still surprised to see that it is ranked an astonishing 13th most popular birth date. Meanwhile, Aerin’s birthday (Nov 1) is ranked 233rd, J’s (Jan 27) 262nd, and mine (Dec 7) 284th.
And the least popular birth date of the year? That would be Christmas Day, if you discount February 29th.
How does your birth date measure up? Are you surprised by the results?
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I have one of the very common birthdays: September 9th. I love that it is 9/9, but I am not surprised to see how many people are born in September. I feel like I come across so many people who have a birthday near mine. I’m curious to see where it ranks. I’ll have to click over to the article.
Oh my gosh! Not only is it common, it’s ranked #2 out of 366 days!
Nice! What a coincidence, Ayesha.
Uh, hello folks. I’m definitely late to the party here stumbling onto this blog and finally sending a reply about something. And I’m really glad I found this blog since there is a variety of topics and info published that I think are really interesting. I’m trying to find enough time in the day to get through the older entries buried deep in the archives. I have so much left to read!
Anyway, from looking at this data chart and that detailed article from Matt Stiles, my birthday is listed the #3 most common (Sept. 23rd) while my brother’s is #5 being a day ahead of mine’s (Sept. 22nd).
There are a few late August birthdays in my family as well, including two of my cousins (Aug. 24th & 26th) who each plan to throw a big party on consecutive weekends this year instead of following their usual plan of hosting one together. I told them to have those bottles of Corona and that big keg of Heineken on tap because I’m not holding back. I don’t have to worry about driving to or from either place this time. 😉
I totally understand why Christmas is the least popular – no scheduled c-sections that day, but I know two people born that day! I have a semi-popular date of 11/19. My daughter’s birthday is more popular than mine on 6/11, though . I love this study!
My birthday is Sep. 30, too! My brother-in-law shares it with me, also. Plus I’m due to have my first on the 20th and my sister is due on the 27th! (between my family and my husband’s, there is a total of 6 birthdays already in September.)
And then my mom’s birthday is on Christmas! (when I was little I thought everyone had birthday cake on Christmas….)
My birthday is on Feb. 29!
My statistics professor in grad school once used this in a lesson.. He said the reason why certain months are popular birthdays have more to do with the fact that they’re longer.. I forget his connection to statistics (something about having uniform units of measurement or something)..
This is so interesting! I’m a christmas baby (12/23) so not very common…that totally explains all of the fall birthdays!
On the site with the interactive version, there’s a comment about how the 13th is the least common birthday in general because of it being considered unlucky. Not only was I born on the 13th, it was a Friday as well! Ha!
Out of all the family members, my oldest son has the most common (197/366) birthday, and my youngest, Mr. Independence Day, comes in at 361/366, the least common. This was very interesting and something I’ve wondered about before.