Happy Birthday Trivia
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170 free Happy Birthday trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
60 free happy birthday trivia questions with answers. This happy birthday trivia quiz is built for the party itself: the story of the world's most recognised song and the $14 million copyright settlement that finally freed it, the German count whose 1746 cake had a candle for every year, why 23 people in a room is all it takes for two to share a birthday, and what people born on 29 February call themselves. It then goes round the world: seaweed soup in Korea, longevity noodles in China, a fifteenth-birthday tiara in Mexico, fairy bread in Australia, Trooping the Colour for a monarch whose real birthday is in the wrong season, and a Dutch national holiday that moved because the queen was born in January. Pop culture gets a look in too, from Marilyn Monroe's dress to Bilbo's eleventy-first party. Most questions suit a mixed table of adults and older kids; a handful at the end will stump the birthday nerd. Every answer was checked against a reference page and shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 170 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The tune of 'Happy Birthday to You' was originally published in 1893 as a classroom song called what?
Good Morning to All
Good Morning to All is credited to the Hill sisters: Mildred, a composer, and Patty, a kindergarten principal who wanted a greeting her pupils would find easy to sing; the birthday words were attached to the tune later.
Q 02Guinness lists 'Happy Birthday to You', 'Auld Lang Syne' and which other song as the most frequently sung in English?
For He's a Jolly Good Fellow
For He's a Jolly Good Fellow borrows its tune from an 18th-century French song, usually taken to be about the Duke of Marlborough, in which a general rides off to war and his lady learns he is dead and buried.
Q 03Which publisher refunded $14 million in 2016 after its copyright claim on 'Happy Birthday to You' was voided?
Warner/Chappell
Warner/Chappell agreed in 2016 to refund about $14 million to licensees after a 2015 federal ruling found its 1935 registration covered only a piano arrangement, not the words and melody.
Q 04In the European Union, the copyright on 'Happy Birthday to You' expired on the first day of which year?
2017
The EU term runs 70 years after the author's death; Patty Hill, the last surviving Hill sister, died in 1946, so protection ended on 1 January 2017.
Q 05Marilyn Monroe famously sang 'Happy Birthday' to President Kennedy in May 1962 at a gala held where?
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden hosted the Democratic fundraising gala on 19 May 1962, ten days before Kennedy turned 45; the audience gasped when Monroe slipped off a white fur coat to reveal her sheer, glittering dress.
Q 06Who wore Marilyn Monroe's 1962 'Happy Birthday' dress to the Met Gala sixty years later?
Kim Kardashian
Kim Kardashian wore the original on the 2022 red carpet for only a few minutes, then changed into a replica to spare the fragile gown.
Q 07Which Motown star's 1981 single 'Happy Birthday' campaigned to make a civil rights leader's birthday a US holiday?
Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder wrote it for the drive to honour Martin Luther King and hosted a rally in 1981; six million people signed the petition to Congress, and Reagan signed the holiday into law in 1983.
Q 08The Beatles' song 'Birthday' opens the third side of which 1968 double LP?
The White Album
The White Album's third side opens with 'Birthday', made up and recorded in a single evening: the band broke off to watch the rock 'n' roll film The Girl Can't Help It on television, then came back and finished it.
Q 09'Go, shorty, it's your birthday' is the opening hook of which 2003 hit by 50 Cent?
In da Club
In da Club began as a beat offered to D12 for the 8 Mile soundtrack, who passed on it; 50 Cent wrote the lyrics in about an hour, reasoning that every day is someone's birthday.
Q 10The birthday cake with one candle per year of age is generally traced to 18th-century celebrations where?
Germany
Germany is where Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf's birthday party in 1746 featured a cake 'as large as any oven could be found to bake it', with a candle stuck into it for every year of his age.
Q 11One theory says ancient Greeks lit candles on cakes to honour which goddess's birth each lunar month?
Artemis
Artemis, by this theory, was honoured on the sixth day of every lunar month; Athenians certainly offered her cakes ringed with burning candles at the Mounichia, a festival held at the full moon.
Q 12In Vietnamese tradition, everyone turns older together on which holiday, whatever their date of birth?
Tết (Lunar New Year)
Tết, the Lunar New Year, is the traditional shared birthday: everyone is counted older from that day, and children wish their elders a long life in return for lucky money in red envelopes.
Q 13How many people must be in a room for a better-than-even chance that two share a birthday?
23
Q 21In Mexico, what is the birthday custom of pushing the celebrant's face into the cake called?
La mordida
La mordida ('the bite') has guests chant 'mordida!' while the birthday person takes the first bite of the cake hands-free and is usually shoved face-first into the frosting.
Q 22Fairy bread, an Australian and New Zealand party staple, is buttered white bread covered in what?
Hundreds and thousands
Hundreds and thousands, the tiny round sprinkles, cover buttered white bread cut into triangles; the name may come from Robert Louis Stevenson's 1885 poem 'Fairy Bread', and the dish is first recorded at a Hobart children's party in 1929.
Q 23What are the points of a traditional star-shaped Mexican piñata said to represent?
23 is enough because you are not comparing everyone with yourself but every pair with each other, and 23 people make 253 possible pairs.
Q 14Someone born on 29 February is commonly nicknamed a what?
Leapling
A leapling, or leaper, has a true birthday only once every four years: someone born on 29 February 2000 had seen just six of them by 2024.
Q 15Which Texas town declared itself the 'leap year capital of the world' in 1988?
Anthony
Anthony, which straddles the Texas–New Mexico line, took the title in 1988 at the urging of two residents born on 29 February, and holds a multi-day leap year festival every four years.
Q 16Which saint, per Irish legend, got St Patrick to let women propose on 29 February?
St Brigid
St Brigid, in the legend, complained to Patrick that women waited too long for men to propose; he offered them one day every seven years, and she bargained him down to one every four.
Q 17In US birth data from 1994 to 2014, the commonest birthdays cluster in which month?
September
September dominates the list, and 16 September was also the single commonest US birthday from 1973 to 1999; the peak comes about nine months after the winter holidays.
Q 18What is Korea's traditional first-birthday celebration, where a baby picks an object, called?
Doljanchi
Doljanchi's highlight is the doljabi: whatever the baby grabs first, money for wealth or a brush for scholarship, is said to foretell its future; the feast mattered most when many infants died before their first birthday.
Q 19Koreans traditionally eat miyeok-guk, a seaweed soup, on the day they were born, to honour whom?
Their mother
Their mother is honoured because Korean women traditionally eat the same seaweed soup for months after giving birth, so a bowl on your birthday thanks her for the labour.
Q 20Which dish is traditionally served at a Chinese birthday meal?
Longevity noodles
Longevity noodles (changshou mian) are served uncut at Chinese birthdays, the single long strand standing for a long life; dumplings belong to New Year and mooncakes to the Mid-Autumn Festival.
The deadly sins
The deadly sins are the seven points; the player is blindfolded to stand for faith, which must be blind, and the game let Spanish friars turn a party into a catechism lesson.
Q 24Which annual London ceremony marks the British sovereign's official birthday?
Trooping the Colour
Trooping the Colour has marked the official birthday since 1748; Edward VII, born in November, kept the parade in early summer for the sake of the weather.
Q 25The British sovereign's official birthday was first marked in 1748 for which monarch?
George II
George II's birthday was the first to be officially marked, in 1748; the custom of a separate official date is why Charles III, born in November, is publicly celebrated each June.
Q 26Why did Queen Beatrix keep the Dutch national holiday on Queen Juliana's date, 30 April, rather than her own?
Hers fell in mid-winter
Hers fell in mid-winter, on 31 January, no weather for a day of outdoor festivities, and keeping 30 April also honoured her mother; the holiday moved to 27 April under King Willem-Alexander.
Q 27The North Korean holiday named the Day of the Sun in 1997 celebrates whose birthday?
Kim Il Sung
Kim Il Sung took that name, meaning 'become the sun', as a young guerrilla in the 1930s, which is why his 15 April birthday was renamed the Day of the Sun in 1997, three years after his death.
Q 28Since 1971, the US federal holiday for Washington's Birthday has fallen on which day?
The third Monday of the month
The third Monday of the month, in February, was fixed by the Uniform Monday Holiday Act to create a three-day weekend, which means the holiday can never land on his real birthday, the 22nd.
Q 29In the Torah, the only birthday celebration mentioned is that of whom?
Pharaoh
Pharaoh's birthday feast in Genesis 40 ends with his chief cupbearer restored to office and his chief baker hanged, exactly as Joseph had read their dreams in prison.
Q 30Which ancient people, per Herodotus, prized birthdays above all days, the rich roasting a whole ox or camel?
The Persians
The Persians, Herodotus adds, served few main courses but many desserts, and said the Greeks rose from the table still hungry because nothing worth having was set before them after the meat.