How common are May birthdays?
- 11,022births per day#6 of 12 months
- 8.4%of all births in the sample7,175,367 recorded
- May 23most common May date#89 of 366
- May 26quietest date that occurs every year#349 of 366
May is the 6th most common birth month of the 12, at 11,022 recorded births per day, 1.4% below an average day across 85,712,738 U.S. births from 1994–2014. Its most common date is May 23 (#89 of 366) and its quietest date that occurs every year is May 26 (#349).
Every date is coloured by the same six rarity tiers the reveal uses; the small number is its rank of 366 from most common.
- 1#220
- 2#181
- 3#262
- 4#328
- 5#194
- 6#243
- 7#244
- 8#236
- 9#203
- 10#191
- 11#321
- 12#219
- 13#331
- 14#192
- 15#160
- 16#125
- 17#178
- 18#276
- 19#225
- 20#151
- 21#133
- 22#126
- 23#89
- 24#109
- 25#304
- 26#349
- 27#333
- 28#310
- 29#312
- 30#266
- 31#326
Every May date: recorded U.S. births 1994–2014
One column per May date in calendar order, coloured by rarity tier, total recorded births 1994–2014.
Every May date, ranked
Ranked by total recorded births across the 21 years, the same measure as the site-wide rank of 366.
| Date | Total births | Rank of 366 | Odds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 23 | 243,051 | #89 | 1 in 353 | |
| May 24 | 239,490 | #109 | 1 in 358 | |
| May 16 | 237,933 | #125 | 1 in 360 | |
| May 22 | 237,932 | #126 | 1 in 360 | |
| May 21 | 237,249 | #133 | 1 in 361 | |
| May 20 | 235,846 | #151 | 1 in 363 | |
| May 15 | 235,258 | #160 | 1 in 364 | |
| May 17 | 234,418 | #178 | 1 in 366 | |
| May 2 | 234,364 | #181 | 1 in 366 | |
| May 10 | 233,301 | #191 | 1 in 367 | |
| May 14 | 233,287 | #192 | 1 in 367 | |
| May 5 | 233,270 | #194 | 1 in 367 | |
| May 9 | 232,748 | #203 | 1 in 368 | |
| May 12 | 231,981 | #219 | 1 in 369 | |
| May 1 | 231,969 | #220 | 1 in 370 | |
| May 19 | 231,664 | #225 | 1 in 370 | |
| May 8 | 231,046 | #236 | 1 in 371 | |
| May 6 | 230,678 | #243 | 1 in 372 | |
| May 7 | 230,637 | #244 | 1 in 372 | |
| May 3 | 229,832 | #262 | 1 in 373 | |
| May 30 | 229,810 | #266 | 1 in 373 | |
| May 18 | 229,518 | #276 | 1 in 373 | |
| May 25 | 228,090 | #304 | 1 in 376 | |
| May 28 | 227,501 | #310 | 1 in 377 | |
| May 29 | 227,287 | #312 | 1 in 377 | |
| May 11 | 226,257 | #321 | 1 in 379 | |
| May 31 | 225,906 | #326 | 1 in 379 | |
| May 4 | 225,674 | #328 | 1 in 380 | |
| May 13 | 225,316 | #331 | 1 in 380 | |
| May 27 | 225,130 | #333 | 1 in 381 | |
| May 26 | 218,924 | #349 | 1 in 392 |
May in the year
May has 8.37% of all recorded births in this sample, over 651 observed days. Months are ranked by births per day. On that measure May is #6 of 12, against September at the top (11,811 per day) and January at the bottom (10,721). Full month ranking.
Keep going
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Sources, method and limits
Main ranking: 85,712,738 recorded U.S. births on 7,670 calendar dates, 1994–2014. CDC/NCHS daily counts for 1994–1999 and Social Security Administration daily counts for 2000–2014, as compiled by FiveThirtyEight and attributed under CC BY 4.0. The overlapping years 2000–2003 are counted once.
Ranks compare totals across the 366 observed month-and-day dates. February 29 occurred 5 times in this window; every other date occurred 21 times, so per-occurrence figures are used wherever seasonality is compared.
Every figure above comes from the administrative records named here, at the granularity those records publish: a day, a month or a year. Coverage and definitions differ between countries and eras, so two sources are combined only where their documentation states the windows are separate, and the page where that happens says so.
Full method, leap-day treatment and definitions.
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