Leap Day is February 29 and comes around just once every four years. So what happens if you are born on a leap day? In this post, you’ll get to know everything about leap day and leap year.
A leap day is added in different solar calendars (solar calendars are calendars based on the earth’s revolution around the sun) including the Gregorian calendar standard in most of the world.
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Table of Contents
What is a Leap Year?
A Leap year is a year where an intercalary or extra day is added to the end of February. A leap year has 366 days instead of 365 and occurs every four years.

Why do we have Leap Years?
For the Earth to complete its orbit around the sun, it takes about 365.24 days and because of the .24 extra time, if we did not add a leap day every four years, each Gregorian calendar would begin about six hours before the Earth completes its orbit of the sun.
Eventually, this extra time would knock the Gregorian calendar out of sync with the seasons, therefore, shifting the seasons by about 24 calendar days within a century.
If this continued for some centuries, Christmas would fall in the middle of summer in the Northern Hemisphere.
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What happens if you are born on a Leap Day?
People born on a leap day are called leaplings and are sometimes referred to as leapers, leapters, or leap day babies.
If you are born on a leap day, you don’t always celebrate your actual birthday because that day (February 29) occurs only every four years.
If you are born on a leap day, you’ll usually celebrate your birthday on February 28 or March 1 and use one of those dates for identification and important documents.
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Countries like New Zealand and the United Kingdom have laws specifically for those born on a leap day. In New Zealand, the official birthday for those born on a leap day falls on February 28 while in the UK the official birthday is March 1.
How many babies are born on Leap Day?
The chances of a baby being born on February 29 are very slim – about 1 in 1,461 this is because February 29 only comes around once every 1,461 days. And if a baby is born during a leap year, the chance of the baby’s birthday falling on February 29 is 1 in 366 but this completely depends on when the baby is conceived.

How old would you be if you were born on a Leap Year?
1904: You would be 117 years old in “human” years or 29 years old in leap day years.
1908: You would be 113 years old in “human” years or 28 years old in leap day years
1912: You would be 109 years old or 27 years old
1916: You would be 105 years old or 26 years old
1920: You would be 101 years old or 25 years old
1924: You would be 97 years old or 24 years old
1928: You would be 93 years old or 23 years old
1932: You would be 89 years old or 22 years old
1936: You would be 85 years old or 21 years old
1940: You would be 81 years old or 20 years old
1944: You would be 77 years old or 19 years old
1948: You would be 73 years old or 18 years old
1952: You would be 69 years old or 17 years old
1956: You would be 65 years old or 16 years old
1960: You would be 61 years old or 15 years old
1964: You would be 57 years old or 14 years old
1968: You would be 53 years old or 13 years old
1972: You would be 49 years old or 12 years old
1976: You would be 45 years old or 11 years old
1980: You would be 41 years old or 10 years old
1984: You would be 37 years old or 9 years old
1988: You would be 33 years old or 8 years old
1992: You would be 29 years old or 7 years old
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1996: You would be 25 years old or 6 years old
2000: You would be 21 years old or 5 years old
2004: You would be 17 years old or 4 years old
2008: You would be 13 years old or 3 years old
2012: You would be 9 years old or 2 years old
2016: You would be 5 years old or 1 year old
2020: According to the leap year calendar, you are a newborn, and the leap day math does not apply to your age until the next leap year in 2024 when you will be 4 years old and 1 year old in leap day years.
Famous people born on a Leap Day
So many people can find a list of famous people who share the same date of birth as them, but for leaplings, the list is much shorter.
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Here is a list of some famous people born on a leap day
- Ja Rule – American rapper and actor
- Antonio Sabàto Jr. – Italian-American model and actor
- Petro Sanchez – Prime Minister of Spain
- Terrence Long – American basketball player
- Rica Imai – Japanese model and actress
- Rubén Plaza – Spanish cyclist
- Cullen Jones – American swimmer
- Dennis Walger – German rugby player
- Cam Ward – Canadian ice hockey player
- Rakhee Thakrar – English actress
- Adam Sinclair – Indian field hockey player
- Milan Melindo – Filipino boxer
- Sean Abbott – Australian cricketer
- Ferran Torres – Spanish footballer
- Claudia Williams – New Zealand tennis player
- Eric Kendricks – American football player
- Caitlin EJ Meyer – American actress
- Tyrese Haliburton – American basketball player
- Benedikt Höwedes – German footballer
- Çağdaş Atan – Turkish footballer and coach
- Lena Raine – American video game composer and producer
- Nuria Martínez – Spanish basketball player
- Reece Prescod – British sprinter
- Katalin Kovács – Hungarian sprint kayaker
Summary of What Happens if You Are Born on a Leap Day
As we noted earlier, few people are born on the 29th. At this point, we believe that you now know What happens if You are Born on a Leap Day and we hope this post was helpful.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is leap day a rare birthday?
Yes, it is! This is due to the fact that the 29th of February happens once in 4 years’ time.
What’s the rarest birthday?
February 29th Birthdays are the rarest Birthday and few people are born on this day. If you are born on this day, consider yourself lucky and special 🙂
What are 5 rare birthdays?
- February 29 (Leap Day)
- December 25 (Christmas Day)
- January 1 (New Year’s Day)
- December 24 (Christmas Eve)
- July 4 (Independence Day)
- December 26 (After Christmas)