Significance of the day of birth

[Loppan Torkel]

Aside from being born and alive. What significance does the day of birth have in in your nation/culture?
In the US lying or withholding your age seems more common and in some cases more or less protected by law.
Here in Sweden our 'social security number' is our 'Person number' which is the day of our birth with four number added to the end. This means we use our day of birth commonly, are reminded of it and perhaps also more influenced and aware of our own and of others' ages. Everyone born here get the appropriate number to his or her person and everyone who become a Swedish citizen get an assigned number.
I'm not sure which other nations connect the social security number to the day of birth, or what reasons lie behind the different systems.

What's your experience?

Edit: I've also heard that in China, an infant born a day before can be regarded two years old depending on which date it was born.

 

[Borachio]

On a UK driving licence, your date of birth appears very poorly encoded on your licence number.

A UK National Insurance number is in the form AB 12 34 56 C. I've never worked out the logic of it. Probably just based on the area where you first register.

I guess the most significant effect of date of birth is on education. The UK academic year runs from Sept to August. So those born in Sept have ~a year's head start on those born in August.
This is important and significant when you're under 10, and the effects last until when?

 

[Cutlass]

In the US if you have a driver's license, your date of birth is right there..

 

[Kraznaya]

Edit: I've also heard that in China, an infant born a day before can be regarded two years old depending on which date it was born.

Yes, traditionally, people are born at age "1" due to time spent in the womb and age on the Chinese New Year. You could therefore be 2 years old by the traditional reckoning if you were born on New Years' Eve. The system is no longer used legally and actual birthdays are now also celebrated.

 

[Leifmk]

Here in Sweden our 'social security number' is our 'Person number' which is the day of our birth with four number added to the end. This means we use our day of birth commonly, are reminded of it and perhaps also more influenced and aware of our own and of others' ages. Everyone born here get the appropriate number to his or her person and everyone who become a Swedish citizen get an assigned number.
I'm not sure which other nations connect the social security number to the day of birth, or what reasons lie behind the different systems.

Similar deal in Norway -- date of birth plus a few more digits (five, in our case). It's not a simple serial number, though; the last two digits are a check sum. Also one of the digits is odd for men, even for women. The system is expected to break and need replacement within a few decades due to projected population growth and so forth.

 

[AlpsStranger]

Americans don't believe in aging and death. We don't have time in our busy schedules.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I regard my age in terms of how many trips I've made around the Sun. I don't lie about my age, because what's the point? People are whatever their ages are, and lying won't change it.

Besides, next year some of the traditional "perks" for those 50+ start kicking in for me - and I won't argue with those!

 

[Grisu]

Similar deal in Norway -- date of birth plus a few more digits (five, in our case). It's not a simple serial number, though; the last two digits are a check sum. Also one of the digits is odd for men, even for women. The system is expected to break and need replacement within a few decades due to projected population growth and so forth.

we had a weakly encoded date of birth in our social security number, too. (as well as a encoded version of the last name, gender and nationality). this meant that your ss-number could change several times throughout your life...so a few years ago a new, non-speaking 13-digit number was introduced

other than that, I assume the significance of the birthday is similar in Switzerland as it is in most other western countries.

 

[Josu]

Until the middle of XX century in some areas of Spain and some areas of basque country people was named based on the calendar of saint's days. For example boys born in Saint Michael's day were named Miguel.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Until the middle of XX century in some areas of Spain and some areas of basque country people was named based on the calendar of saint's days. For example boys born in Saint Michael's day were named Miguel.

So does every day of the year have both male and female saints' names? 'Cause otherwise there would be a lot of nameless kids...

 

[Traitorfish]

Most Christian names translate between genders (especially in the Latin languages), so you only really need one. Presumably kids born on saint-less days, or on days with non-translating names (e.g. Ricardo), just skipped the tradition.

 

[Grisu]

why is Ricardo not translatable? I went to school with a Ricarda...or did you mean that there's no female version for the english equivalent?

 

[Traitorfish]

Sort of. I originally wrote "Richard", and then thought "wait, we're talking about Spain" and changed it without considering that "Ricarda" might be a name, and this despite having observed the greater flexibility of Latin languages in the previous sentence. Because I'm a bit thick.

 

[Josu]

So does every day of the year have both male and female saints' names? 'Cause otherwise there would be a lot of nameless kids...

Not sure about every day of the year having both male and female names, but I would say that yes. In any case it was very common as well giving the name of the patron saint or mother of the peoples of the village.

Most Christian names translate between genders (especially in the Latin languages), so you only really need one. Presumably kids born on saint-less days, or on days with non-translating names (e.g. Ricardo), just skipped the tradition

That's right, I know a lady that was born in San Juan's (Saint John) day and was named Juana

 

[holy king]

are there even days without a saint attached to it?

 

[Traitorfish]

I think that depends on the region. There's certainly gaps in the standard Catholic calendar, but they might fill in the gaps with local saints; Britain has a lot of days dedicated to Celtic and Anglo-Saxon saints that nobody else has every heard of, for example.

 

[Josu]

are there even days without a saint attached to it?

The calendar I have in front of me right now is having saints or blessed people for each day. As Traitorfish said they may be local saints, and not the official ones. I can ask to a relative who is in a religious order if you are interested in deeping in the catholic saints calendar.

 

[Borachio]

On a related issue. The top 10 unusual patron saints.

Saint Gertrude of Nivelles - patron saint of the fear of mice
Scholastica - convulsive children
Hubert of Liege - mad dogs
Monica - alcoholics
Dominic Savio - juvenile delinquents
Isidore of Seville - the internet
Brendan the Navigator - whales
Rene Goupil - anesthesiologists
Polycarp - dysentery
Fiacre - STD's

 

[Leoreth]

Half of them sound like they're pokemon.

 

[Tee Kay]

My date of birth is the day the lives of many people were fated for disaster.