EVER wondered how popular your birthday is?

An online tool, created by the Office for National Statistics, looks at trends in the most and least popular birth dates over the past two decades.

September 26 was the most popular day to be born, which falls 39 weeks and two days after Christmas day.

Eight of the top 10 dates of birth were towards the end of September – with the other 2 being early October.

Part of the reason for this increase in births could be due to couples planning to have children at the start of the school year. 

Or perhaps it could be down to couples being full of festive and New Year cheer? 

If births were evenly distributed throughout the year we would expect on average 1,800 births each day. But the average number of births on September 26 was around 2,000.

England and Wales is not the only country to have seen this trend. Similar analysis using data for New Zealand and the U.S shows a larger number of babies born in September.

While the Christmas holidays may be a popular time to make a baby there tend to be fewer babies born, with 6 of the 10 least popular dates of birth falling in the Christmas and New Year period.

This is likely to be due to the large number of bank holidays over the period. Hospitals will generally only be delivering natural births and carrying out emergency caesareans over the holidays. Induced births and elective caesareans are likely to be scheduled on alternative dates.

February 29 has the lowest total number of births over the twenty year period because it only occurs once every 4 years. However, the average number of births on February 29 takes into account the day only occurs on a leap year, resulting in a value just under the overall daily average.

April 1 is ranked low, perhaps due to parents electing not to have an April Fool’s Day baby where possible.

One born every minute

Over the past 20 years there were 8 days where 1,440 babies were born. On these days, to coin a phrase there was one born every minute:

Christmas Day 2014

6 February 2005

16 May 2004

6 July 2002

9 February 2002

13 April 1998

25 October 1997

11 February 1996

Contrary to the saying, over the past two decades,on average a baby has been born every 48 seconds.