<p>Why shouldn't anime characters have official birthdays? It would be strange if they didn't have them!</p>

<p>Over in the west animated characters are given birthdays also. Spongebob's date of birth is July 14th, 1986.</p>

<p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/4MwjG.jpg" alt="Spongebob"></p>

<p>Presumably the addition of birthdays is just to make characters a bit more realistic. 
And occasionally it helps with character, For example in Kodocha, Akito was given his name as he was born in autumn. Sana was named so because she was born on 7th march.</p>

<p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/eKq33.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></p>

<p>Sometimes an author will release a 'databook' with information about the different characters including dates of birth, blood types etc. The example below is an excerpt from a Bleach databook. </p>

<p>Birthdays of course can be shown to in the actual show's content, in which case the day the episode was first aired is taken to be their birthday.</p>

<p>However, the most common case is to take birthdays from a character profile</p>

<p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/MwGgB.jpg" height="300" /></p>

<p>As for historical significance, authors have been giving fictional characters from day one.</p>

<p>Sherlock Holmes's birthdate is  6 January, 1854</p>

<p><strong><em>TL;DR</em></strong>:  Fictional characters are treated as non-fictional characters to bestow a sense of realism on them, so why shouldn't they have birthdays, blood types and everything else we have?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-05-22T17:16:57.160Z
"*Sana was named so because she was born on 7th march.*" - Sorry, but what's the connection?
Cattua
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-05-22T18:14:07.713Z
Probably: "San"=3 (March); "Nana"=7. And somehow San+Nana=Sana... That's just my guess, though.
JNat
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-01-22T23:18:35.723Z
There's actually two different readings for 七, @MaikaSakuranomiya; see [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_numerals).
JNat
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-05-22T09:33:16.900Z
2013-05-22T09:33:16.900Z
Toshinou Kyouko
<p>Why do anime characters have official birthdays? Why do they decide for the anime characters to have birthdays? Does this have a historical basis? And when exactly is a character's birthday decided? Is it when a character's physical appearance is drafted? What is the birthday's significance?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-05-22T08:20:56.323Z
for the former part, it simply adds to the realism.. how would a bio sheet look with just a name and occupation.. it's just another one of those things inherited from real life
iKlsR
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-05-22T16:43:04.423Z
Astrology could have a part in choosing a birthday for a character. Coupled with blood type could be used to highlight main characteristics of the character during the character design phase. I have to make a little research to deepen the topic anyway.
chirale
<tropes>
Why do anime characters have official birthdays?
# Why do anime characters have official birthdays?
Posted by: username_0 on 2013-05-22
Why do anime characters have official birthdays? Why do they decide for the anime characters to have birthdays? Does this have a historical basis? And when exactly is a character's birthday decided? Is it when a character's physical appearance is drafted? What is the birthday's significance?
**Tags:** tropes
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: for the former part, it simply adds to the realism.. how would a bio sheet look with just a name and occupation.. it's just another one of those things inherited from real life  
> **username_2**: Astrology could have a part in choosing a birthday for a character. Coupled with blood type could be used to highlight main characteristics of the character during the character design phase. I have to make a little research to deepen the topic anyway.  
---
## 1 answers
### Answer by username_3 on 2013-05-22. Score: 14 | Accepted answer
Why shouldn't anime characters have official birthdays? It would be strange if they didn't have them!

Over in the west animated characters are given birthdays also. Spongebob's date of birth is July 14th, 1986.

![Spongebob](https://i.sstatic.net/4MwjG.jpg)

Presumably the addition of birthdays is just to make characters a bit more realistic.
And occasionally it helps with character, For example in Kodocha, Akito was given his name as he was born in autumn. Sana was named so because she was born on 7th march.

![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/eKq33.jpg)

Sometimes an author will release a 'databook' with information about the different characters including dates of birth, blood types etc. The example below is an excerpt from a Bleach databook.

Birthdays of course can be shown to in the actual show's content, in which case the day the episode was first aired is taken to be their birthday.

However, the most common case is to take birthdays from a character profile

![](https://i.sstatic.net/MwGgB.jpg)

As for historical significance, authors have been giving fictional characters from day one.

Sherlock Holmes's birthdate is 6 January, 1854

***TL;DR***: Fictional characters are treated as non-fictional characters to bestow a sense of realism on them, so why shouldn't they have birthdays, blood types and everything else we have?
> **Comments:**
> **username_4** (2013-05-22): "*Sana was named so because she was born on 7th march.*" - Sorry, but what's the connection?  
> **username_5** (2013-05-22): Probably: "San"=3 (March); "Nana"=7. And somehow San+Nana=Sana... That's just my guess, though.  
> **username_5** (2020-01-22): There's actually two different readings for 七, @MaikaSakuranomiya; see [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_numerals).  
---
