Hunger Games: When Is Katniss Everdeen's Birthday? - CBR

It's been years since the last Hunger Games film was released, but fans of the series still find any reason to celebrate the rebellious and heroic victor, Katniss Everdeen. The dystopian franchise gave viewers an intimate look into Katniss' personal life, but there is one question that the fans still want answered -- when was Katniss born?

Birthdays and similar celebrations were not common in District 12 since most of its residents were incredibly poor and barely had enough to get by. The lavish parties of the Capitol were a foreign concept to Katniss and her partner Peeta Mellark, as they both knew that even having a cake was considered a luxury in their district.

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Although her birthday is never actually celebrated in the book, the first Hunger Games book reveals that Katniss was born on May 8. There's no indication of the year that she was born since the author Suzanne Collins has never explicitly stated when the story is set. Since Katniss is 16 years old at the time of the 74th Hunger Games, she would have been born in the year of the 58th Hunger Games.

In all likelihood, birthdays were probably not a big deal outside of the Capitol because of how much people in the districts feared the Hunger Games. Growing older just meant that kids were one year closer to being in the Games, and those fears didn't go away when those kids grew up to be parents themselves.

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Katniss' date of birth was revealed through a flashback as she remembered her first encounter with Peeta Mellark. At the time, Katniss had been forced to provide for her family after her mother fell into a depression following her father's death. She was only 11 years old and was desperately awaiting the 8th of May when she would turn 12 and become eligible for tesserae.

The Panem government didn't provide much help to the District residents, and when they did, it usually came with a price. Children between the ages of 12 and 18 could request tesserae from the government, which was a year's worth of grain and oil for one person. However, this came with the condition that the child's name would be entered into the Hunger Games lottery again. Katniss made a sacrifice on her 12th birthday by adding her name four times so that she would have enough rations for her mother and sister as well. With memories like that, it's hard to imagine that Katniss looked forward to her birthday.

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Katniss Everdeen's birthday is still celebrated by fans online every year. There are plenty of Tumblr and Twitter pages dedicated to Katniss that post fan-cams and original artwork for her big day, and the official Hunger Games Twitter account tweets a birthday shoutout for her too.

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