a lot of the times (for my characters who have set birthdays) its the date of the first time i drew them, or roughly around that time ! Â although most of them dont really have a solid birth date :0
Similarly to another thread of mine, I recently did a list of most of my characters' birthdays, so I was wondering: how do you guys choose the birth date of your characters?
Personally, most of the time my OCs' birthdays are references to stuff, so it's not really hard to choose for me: for instance, if I associate an character to a book, their birthday will be the date said book was published. I also know that some people prefer use the date the OC was published/created to choose birthdays, or that others use astrology, or just pick a month and number that fits their character's personality! (:
I thought it could be interesting to share our ways of doing; maybe it will give some ideas or inspirations to some TH members who are struggling with choosing birth dates for their OCs!
I Don't usually think of that stuff unless asked about it. Usually i only mention it if it's relevant to their story or character. An example of that would be this boiyo here. He doesn't know his birthday so if he were asked it would probably be something like this.
"My existance day why would you want to know that. Is it of value to you, no i don't see how it could be. Why would you be interested in me? ... hmm, Alright, i'll tell you. It was very long ago. My kind don't keep track of such things as the date of our existance due to its irrelevance. But i believe it was a few decades ago, during the winter season possibly. I first remember the delicious taste of fear and distrust. Oh what a heavenly tasting first meal it was. I don't remember much more than that sadly. But i hope it answers your question, as odd as it was."
I usually either pick a star sign that fits the character, or pick a month and random day that suit the character
tbh I also pick a zodiac sign first then pick a random date within it XD but I remember making Archer and Dally have the same birthdays and my bro's and mine, since I wasn't creative at all lmao, but later on I wanted Dally to be a leo sun instead (i'm a virgo so that didn't suit him at all lol), so I changed their birthdates having Dally's 5 days before mine, and Archer's 5 days after my bro's XDD
edit: oh oh lemme add Chrysler here since his is the only one I looked up; he's a hetalia oc and based of NYC so I kinda looked up when NY became a state and used that ;; since I think the city itself is actually older...
 i... uh just looked that up and apparently  the city was founded may 4th. that would have made him a taurus but leo suits him sooo much better, so i'm keeping the former lmaooo
my first fantroll's birthday is the same day as mine, my main OC's b'day is exactly a month later, and my 2nd fantroll's b'day is june 1st for no reason other than i couldn't see him being born on any other day?
all my other characters' b'days are chosen by astrology but i also try to choose dates within that sign that i'll remember! i suppose an example is actino being born on december 20th as it's 5 days before xmas so i find it easy to recall
Only a few characters of mine have theirs detailed.
Vangoat being me has my birthday, March 24th.
Violette was born on Halloween cause haha, she a ghost, halloween. It's a nice fit.
Fancy gets hers from the day she was created, August 15th. She was my first character and I love her a lot.
Apres has a birthday of January 25th. She was designed well before that, but the RP me and a former friend had where she was born was on January 25th, so it stuck, even after I had to adjust after they vanished entirely.
I probably should go do the others but eh, that's a lot of work and I'm lazy.
emmy's bday is 4/4 (april fourth) because delta (Δ) is the fourth letter of the greek alphabet and also is four. and emmy is heavily associated with the delta. im a master of subtlety.
other ocs have their birthdays as either their creation dates or me just spinning a wheel and seeing what i get lol
I have a google docs file here with all birthdays listed! I won't rest until I have one for each day LAUGHS
Most of my character's birthdays are chosen randomly as well. A few of them do have some significance though.
Garzlan's is July 1st which was the date that I revisted and reworked his character.Â
Jaire's is August 19th; August because that was the month I created him. 19th Because it's the same birthdate as the person he was inspired by.Â
Ara's is September 29th. Which was actually chosen randomly but apparently September 29th is national coffee day, which is super fitting for him.
Dallas' is January 17th. No real significance here, but it was strategically chosen so that he would be 18 years old for most of his story. Â
But yeah, the rest of them are kinda just chosen with no real reason behind them.
I pick a few different ways:
I usually default to the day the character was created or first drawn, or when I received an object that I based the character on, but if it doesn't suit the character (astrologically or for another reason), or if multiple characters would have the same birthday, I try to pick a star sign and day that suits the character better (also, if the character is in an important pair or couple, I try to pick compatible signs for them even if I'm not actually into astrology irl). I base the date on something else of significance if I can, even if it's only the day numbers and not the month.