What happens when you're born on February 29th?
How does a Leap Day birthday affect you? How rare is it? Are there special Leap Day baby names? And when do you celebrate your birthday when it's not a Leap Year?
The chance of having a baby on the 29th February is about 1 in 1,461, so if you give birth on Leap Day, your baby's going to be very special indeed.
It's thought that, around the world, there are about 5 million people who have a Leap Day birthday. And if your baby is one of them, they can join the The Honor Society of Leap Year Day Babies, a Facebook club for anyone with a birthday on 29th February.
How do you celebrate a Leap Day birthday when it's not a Leap Year?
This is definitely big question for Leapster babies! Some parents celebrate on February 28th – because although it's a day early, at least it's the same month as your baby's 'real' birthday.
Others leap (arf) at the chance to celebrate twice over, like Kayleigh from our Top Testers Club told us her in-laws have always insisted on doing with her other half. "My husband has a Leap Day birthday," she says. "On a non leap year, he celebrates on both February 28th and March 1st."
What are good names for a Leap Day baby?
There are quite a few boy names and girl names that reflect a Leap Day birthday. Some of them are pretty obscure: Leapsita, anyone?
But here are some others you may want to consider:
- Delta (the 4th letter of the Greek alphabet, to signify the day happening every 4 years)
- Hypata (leap in Finnish)
- Leapa
- Leapaz
- Leaprah
- Lele (Hawaiian for leap)
- Négy (4th in Hungarian)
- Ruka (Swahili for leap)
- Salto (Spanish for leap)
Is there anything else I should know about being born on February 29th?
It can be a little complicated sometimes – birthday celebrations aside. Some birthdate dropdowns on online forms can have February 29th missing, for example.
But generally speaking, it's not nearly as tricky as it used to be. There's no need now for midwives to 'massage' birth dates to smooth the path of officialdom in the future, as happened to Shauni in our Top Testers Club.
"I was born right on the stroke of midnight on February 28th," she says, "but the nurses put 11.59pm on my notes and told my mum it would 'make my life easier'!"
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