Birthday - Cultural Conventions

Cultural Conventions

Many cultures have one or more coming of age birthdays:

• Jewish boys become bar mitzvah on their 13th birthday. Jewish girls become bat mitzvah on their 12th birthday, or sometimes on their 13th birthday in Reform and Conservative Judaism. This marks the transition where they become obligated in commandments of which they were previously exempted and are counted as part of the community.
• In North America, families often mark a girl's 16th birthday with a "sweet sixteen" celebration.
• In some Hispanic-American countries, as well as in Portuguese-speaking Brazil, the quinceañera (Spanish) or festa de quinze anos (Portuguese) celebration traditionally marks a girl's 15th birthday.
• In India, Hindu male children of some castes like Brahmins have the 12th or 13th birthday replaced with a grand "thread ceremony." The child takes a blessed thread and wears it, symbolizing his coming of age. This is called the Upanayana. This ceremony is practiced amongst boys in the Hindu Brahmin culture.
• In the Philippines, girls on their 18th birthday or boys on their 21st birthday celebrate a debut.
• In some Asian countries that follow the Zodiac calendar, there is a tradition of celebrating the 60th birthday.
• In Korea, many celebrate a traditional ceremony of Baek-il (Feast for the 100th day) and Doljanchi (child's first birthday).
• In Japan there is a Coming of Age Day, for all of those who have turned 20 years of age.
• In the United Kingdom cards from the Royal Family are sent to those celebrating their 100th and 105th birthday and every year thereafter.

The birthdays of historically significant people, such national heroes or founders, are often commemorated by an official holiday marking the anniversary of their birth. Catholic saints are remembered by a liturgical feast (sometimes on a presumed birthday). By analogy, the Latin term Dies natalis is applied to the anniversary of an institution (such as a university).

A person's Golden or Grand Birthday, also referred to as their "Lucky Birthday", "Champagne Birthday", or "Star Birthday", occurs when they turn the age of their birth day (e.g., when someone born on the 21st of the month turns 21 or when someone born on the fourth, turns four).

In many cultures and jurisdictions, if a person's real birthday is not known (for example, if he or she is an orphan), then their birthday may be considered to be January 1. That tradition is followed with horses, their age becoming one, on the first day of the year following their birth and being counted annually after that.

The Chinese consider a child a year old at birth.