There is only a 1 in 1,461 chance of giving birth on the leap day holiday, making it the most rare birthday a person can have. Photo via iStock/Jennifer Miranda

Student Life

Five Years Old at College? BU’s Leap Year Babies Get to Celebrate Rare Birthday

February 29 is special for Terriers Janelle Ramos, Adriana Pagan, and others, as their actual birth date comes around only once every four years

Adriana Pagan was born in 2004—and this Friday she turns five years old.

Huh? Pagan, a sophomore at Boston University, was born on February 29, 2004, which is Leap Day, a day that appears on calendars only every four years. So even though she has been around for 20 years, she has had only five opportunities—including this year— to celebrate her actual birthday.

“I remember being in kindergarten and my teacher scheduled a meeting with my mom because she was very concerned that I was lying about my birthday,” says Pagan (CGS’24), one of the approximately five million “leaplings” around the world born on February 29, and one of several who responded to BU Today’s search for Terrier leap day babies. “It feels more exciting to [finally] celebrate your birthday since you’ve been waiting so long,” she says. “It makes the day a lot more special.”

There is only a 1 in 1,461 chance of giving birth on the leap day holiday, making it the most rare birthday a person can have. Irish folklore says it is the one day of the year that women can propose to their partners (an outdated tradition, in our opinion). And according to the Honor Society of Leap Year Day Babies, a leap day represents balance and harmony. 

“It’s definitely one of my ‘fun facts,’” says another BU sophomore, Janelle Marie Ramos (Questrom’26), who shares her leap day birthday status (as do Terriers Pagan, Avery Donahoe, Romy Knieling, and Ayush Bathla) with the likes of Clark Kent (also known as Superman), the rapper Ja Rule, and motivational speaker Tony Robbins—a rather obscure list that proves just how rare it is. Ramos is from Hawaii and says she half-expects her colorful state-issued ID to get “snapped” by bouncers next year (when she technically turns 21), who might not believe that February 29 is a real day. “I always get a few questions about it at the airport,” she says.

Like most leap day babies, Ramos typically holds her birthday festivities on February 28, which is why she is excited to go all out this year and celebrate on her actual birthday. “I rented a spot in the Seaport, which I think is worth the money since the day only comes every four years,” she says. “You have to splurge.”

As with just about any quirky holiday, businesses hope to cash in on leap day, too. Legal Sea Foods is promoting its “Extra Day, Extra Lobster” and will offer twin one-pound Maine lobsters for $29 (dine-in only). Chipotle is handing out free guacamole. Insomnia Cookies—with a BU spot right on Comm Ave—will give away free cookies with a purchase and host a birthday party for leap day babies on the actual day.  

Why is there this extra day every four years? The Gregorian Calendar, the most widely used calendar in the world, is 365 days long. But it takes the Earth 365.2422 days (known as a solar year) to orbit the sun. So before leap days came about, things were a little chaotic. 

Astronomical and given dates were sometimes off by months, according to Phillip Haberkern, a BU College of Arts & Sciences associate professor of history. The Old Farmer’s Almanac explains that without these special days, seasons would be off by 25 days after 100 years. It would be like if February and March felt like summer in the Northern Hemisphere (which sometimes does happen, but for an entirely different reason).

In 46 BCE, with help from his royal mathematicians and astronomers, Roman Emperor Julius Caesar decreed that a year was now “365 and one-quarter days long, and every fourth year we’ll add in an extra day,” Haberkern says. Caesar thought a reformed calendar would help keep the calendar in sync with the seasons.

But implementing Caesar’s decree wasn’t so simple. Since a year isn’t exactly 365.25 days, there was a slow accumulation of days over centuries. “And so you start to notice that things are getting off,” Haberkern says. “It becomes a huge political issue.” Finally, in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII (yes, the Gregorian Calendar is named for him) instituted a new calendar with adjustments, among them using the proper solar year, adding one leap day every four years, and dropping three leap days every 400 years (got all that?). It created both unrest and disagreement at the time, especially when Protestant countries refused to adhere to the new rules because the Catholic Pope was the one mandating them. But over time, people got on board, and now the calendar matches up with the seasons every year. 

Pope Gregory’s solution seemed to solve the bigger societal problems, but it also created a new, albeit smaller, one for anyone who was born on that one day he added every four years. Like alum Avery Donahoe (CGS’16, COM’18), who got denied at T’s Pub on the night she was celebrating turning 21. “It was the 28th (when I typically celebrate), and they told me I had to wait until March 1 because I was a day too early,” she says. 

Romy Knieling (MET’24) is a twin and she says that her mother, in a post-birth haze, didn’t realize that her two babies were born on such a rare day. “But then suddenly the newspaper came to the hospital to interview her because she had twins on a leap day,” says Knieling, who is from Germany and is studying business analytics. “Every four years growing up my brother and I were in the newspaper and interviewed on the radio. It always felt like something kind of special.”

Ayush Bathla (Questrom’25) has grown up hearing from friends and family on both February 28 and March 1, though he favors the latter as his celebration day. He reports the only inconvenience of being a leap day baby comes when he’s filling out forms. He has learned to choose the year from the drop-down menu first instead of the month, “since February 29th doesn’t exist until you select the year,” says Bathla, a graduate student studying mathematical finance and financial technology. 

“I’ve always taken it in a positive way, because for me, I believe it’s really a lucky thing to have this date as my birthday,” he says. “People can never forget your birthday once you tell them.”