Capricorn is the rarest zodiac sign in historical U.S. birth records when you compare average births per day. From 1994 through 2014, the Capricorn dates, December 22 to January 19, averaged 10,554 recorded births per day. Virgo, August 23 to September 22, had the highest average, with 11,782 births per day. That is 11.6% more than Capricorn. This result depends on five low-birth dates around Christmas and New Year’s Day. Without those five dates and July 4, Aries has the lowest average, and Capricorn ranks eighth of 12.
Capricorn also has the fewest total births, with 6,427,467. That is 7.5% of 85,712,738 births. The sign with the most total births depends on the date ranges. With the ranges in this study, Virgo has the most. If Cancer starts on June 21, Cancer has the most.
Zodiac signs ranked by births per day
The table uses each sign's range from the Encyclopaedia Britannica sign articles, such as Capricorn and Virgo. The signs are only labels for calendar date ranges here. This study makes no astrological claim.
| Sign | Date range | Calendar dates | Date occurrences | Total births | Share of births | Births per date occurrence | Rank by births per occurrence | Rank by total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Virgo | August 23–September 22 | 31 | 651 | 7,670,399 | 8.9% | 11,782 | 1 | 1 |
| Leo | July 23–August 22 | 31 | 651 | 7,607,411 | 8.9% | 11,686 | 2 | 2 |
| Cancer | June 22–July 22 | 31 | 651 | 7,487,969 | 8.7% | 11,502 | 3 | 4 |
| Libra | September 23–October 23 | 31 | 651 | 7,439,367 | 8.7% | 11,428 | 4 | 5 |
| Gemini | May 21–June 21 | 32 | 672 | 7,502,640 | 8.8% | 11,165 | 5 | 3 |
| Scorpio | October 24–November 21 | 29 | 609 | 6,785,518 | 7.9% | 11,142 | 6 | 11 |
| Pisces | February 19–March 20 | 31 | 635 | 6,972,168 | 8.1% | 10,980 | 7 | 7 |
| Taurus | April 20–May 20 | 31 | 651 | 7,140,704 | 8.3% | 10,969 | 8 | 6 |
| Sagittarius | November 22–December 21 | 30 | 630 | 6,908,922 | 8.1% | 10,967 | 9 | 8 |
| Aquarius | January 20–February 18 | 30 | 630 | 6,897,158 | 8.0% | 10,948 | 10 | 9 |
| Aries | March 21–April 19 | 30 | 630 | 6,873,015 | 8.0% | 10,910 | 11 | 10 |
| Capricorn | December 22–January 19 | 29 | 609 | 6,427,467 | 7.5% | 10,554 | 12 | 12 |
Births per date occurrence is the sign's total births divided by the number of actual days in its range across the 21 years. It is an average number of births per day. This measure gives a fair comparison of signs that have 29 to 32 calendar dates.
February 29 is in Pisces. It occurred only five times in these years, so Pisces has 635 date occurrences, not 651. Its average uses those five actual leap days.
Which sign has the most births in total?
Total births favor longer ranges. Seven signs have 31 or 32 calendar dates. Capricorn and Scorpio have only 29.
With these ranges, Virgo has 7,670,399 total births, or 8.9%. Some horoscope tables start Cancer on June 21 and Scorpio on October 23. With those ranges, Cancer has 32 dates and 7,726,074 births, or 9.0%. Cancer then has the most total births, and Virgo is second.
The births-per-day result does not change in this way. Virgo has the highest average and Capricorn the lowest with both sets of ranges.
Do different sign dates change the answer?
Sign dates differ by about one day between sources and years. We moved the start of each sign one day earlier and one day later, one sign at a time. That gave 24 other sets of ranges.
In all 24 sets, Capricorn had the lowest births per day and Virgo had the highest. The total-births leader changed in 8 sets. It became Gemini, Cancer, Leo, or Libra. The lowest total changed only once. When Capricorn started on December 21, Sagittarius had the fewest total births.
Capricorn had the lowest births per day in the CDC 1994–1999 data and in the SSA 2000–2014 data. It was lowest in 19 of the 21 single years. Sagittarius was lowest in 2008, and Taurus was lowest in 2013. Virgo was highest in 12 years, and Leo in the other 9.
Which dates lower Capricorn's average?
Capricorn includes December 24, 25, 26, and 31 and January 1. Each of these dates around Christmas and New Year’s Day is among the 20 dates with the fewest total births. The rarest-birthday guide ranks them with all other dates.
As a check, we removed those five dates and July 4 from the data. Capricorn then averaged 10,979 births per day. It was no longer the lowest sign. Aries was lowest, at 10,910. These records show when births occurred. They do not explain why.
Source and limits
We combined CDC/NCHS 1994 through 1999 and SSA 2000 through 2014 daily U.S. birth files compiled by FiveThirtyEight. We left out overlapping CDC years. The counts are historical U.S. births. They do not estimate worldwide births or the signs of people alive today.
Fixed date ranges are an approximation. The actual date that a sign starts can move by about one day from year to year. The records contain dates, not birth times, so we cannot assign births near a boundary more exactly.
Use the birthday checker to see how your own date ranks. The birth-month comparison compares whole months with the same per-day measure. Read the methodology for how we calculate ranks and averages.