birthday luck

Birthdays a Tradition, on the 13th no less.

Leave a comment
birthday luck

foter.com

OK, so there are many people out there who are superstitious about 13, and particularly Friday the 13th. It’s even got its own name — triskaidekaphobia. Now, that would get you a bunch of points in Words with Friends.

The term comes from Greek, where tris means three, kai means and, deka means ten and phobia means fear. A triskaidekaphobia info site — yes, you really can find anything online — tells us:

“The number 13 wasn’t always bad-famed, quite the contrary. In ancient China and Egypt, thirteen was considered a lucky number. It is unclear when exactly [13 did] become an unlucky number.

Some attribute it to the Bible, where the Last Supper was attended by 13 people, and some speculated that the 13th person at the table was Judas, who later betrayed Jesus. However, there is no reference to support this theory.

Another belief is that the phobia of number 13 is caused by it being an irrational number and 12 being the number of perfection.

There are 12 months in a year, 12 zodiacs, 12 hours in a clock and there were 12 tribes of Israel.”

Now, all that said, you’re wondering what this has to do with birthdays right?

Birthday Luck

Well, there is a family in Orange County, California that can only look at the 13th as a lucky day. After all, FOUR generations of the family celebrate their birthday on August 13th!
Sarah Peeler shares her birthday with her daughter Lori (which distracts me with the thought of having to go into labor on your birthday — ugh). But the day was special even before that.
Lori’s grandfather and great-grandmother also were born on the same birth date. And Lori’s parents didn’t even plan for the Aug. 13 delivery.
“Several weeks before, we just thought this won’t happen, for sure it won’t happen,” Sarah told ABC News. “Once we reached the week of, we both looked at each other and said ‘I think it’s going to happen, it’s fate!'”

Lori’s birth earned the family a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records, for “most generations born on the same day.“

birthday luck
Now Sarah’s husband Ryan, and Lori’s dad, only has one date to remember:
“I hadn’t really thought about it, before we celebrated this weekend, let’s have two back-to-back parties,” he said. “Trying to figure it out, I don’t know what the protocol is yet for something like this.”

The odds are estimated to be somewhere in the one in a million range, the family said.  But Ryan for one doesn’t need to push his luck, saying his daughter is: “Better than any lotto ticket.”

Advertisement

Luckiest Birthdays in 2018

2 Comments

I have always known I had a lucky birthday. It’s my birthday. Of course it is lucky! But now fortune tellers in Japan have backed me up!

For this year at least, my birthday is the luckiest of those in my household. My husband’s comes in second, the dog is third, and the son is fourth. As he’s nine and might take being behind the dog poorly, I probably just won’t tell him.

And, since my “lucky” birthday is only the 134th most lucky birthday of the year, I’m not really doing all that hot myself.

My husband’s comes in at #185, Maddy (shown below) is #249, and the boy is #321. And before you think I’m too loopy about my dog, I really only checked hers on the list to see if my son could top someone’s birthday luck…but no (ahem) such luck.

What are the luckiest birthdays?

The list comes from a Japanese website, Medigaku, which consulted the predictions of 10 popular fortune tellers to find out the order of luckiest birth date.

If you’re expecting a baby, April 14 2018 is the day to pop him or her out. That’s thought to be the luckiest birthday on the books this year. It’s good news for actors Sarah Michelle Gellar, Anthony Michael Hell, and Adrien Brody, singer Loretta Lynn, and entrepreneur Bobbi Brown.

A Taiwan News site noted the 04/14 top spot “is a bit surprising” as “as in Japan, China, Hong Kong, the Koreas, Taiwan, and parts of Southeast Asia, the number four is a homophone with the word for death and is generally considered highly unlucky and inauspicious.”

The least lucky birthday of 2018? December 7. The anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, FYI, and the birthdate of athletes Terrell Owens, Larry Bird, John Terry, actor Nicholas Hoult, and singer Sara Bareilles.

You can read the whole list online. I highly recommend using the search function (control-F) with your birthday in month, date order! In the meantime, check out some ways people have tried birthday luck with lotteries!

Baby born against 48M-to-one odds!

2 Comments

The media often tells us about babies being born “against all odds.” Yet little Libbie Ballingall, born this month in Britain, takes the proverbial cake (birthday cake of course).

The infant girl was born August 1 at 6 pounds, 3 ounces. Yet what makes her particularly unique?

Birthday Baby

Image source: The Mirror

Libbie was born on the same birth date as her Mom and her Dad. Yes, the parents already celebrated a joint birthday. Now, the family will have to spread the joy over all three of them on the same date!

Plus, before you put a damper on this amazing coincidence, the little girl was not induced to come nine days late.

Her Mom told the Mirror, “The day before she arrived I was hoping she would wait, we never thought it would happen though. It is just bizarre.”

The mother also said, “Libbie is the best birthday present we could ever have.” So, obviously, she’s a first-time mother!

The nurses at the birthing hospital were pretty thrilled, too. When they found out, they even provided a cake to commemorate the triple birthday. (Surely a nice treat as opposed to the normal hospital pudding offered to a Mom in the maternity ward).

That the mom and dad are already birthday buddies celebrating the same August 1 birthday was pretty impressive. Yet consider too theirs isn’t even a mid-September birthday — the most popular time worldwide to be born.

A British bookie put the odds of a baby being born on its parents’ birthdays at 48,000,000 to 1. As I know absolutely nothing about probability (having changed my major to avoid statistics), I’ll take his word for it. Even though he goes by the odd name “Paddy Power.”

Now here’s a family that should be playing their birthdates at the lottery!