Ask Marilyn

Is there any day of the year on which more Americans have been born than any other day? —Samantha Sakers, Centreville, Va. Yep, and one of them is today, Sept. 16. (Happy birthday, readers!) Another study sets the date as Sept. 9. (Happy belated birthday to you!) And aside from Feb. 29, the least common birthday is Dec. 25, followed by Jan. 1. That's not a coincidence, of course. During the years the data was gathered, the percentage of U.S. births that were induced grew from about 10 percent to 20 percent, and many of those parents avoided Christmas and New Year's Day. The most common birth months by far are July, August and September.