Shymea Research · Study 03
Which zodiac sign is the rarest, really?
Every list of rare and common zodiac signs on the web is a guess. This one is counted. We took 62 million United States births recorded by calendar day, placed each day against the Sun's exact sign change for that year, and ranked the twelve signs. Then we did the same with the registries of England and Wales, Canada and Australia. Leo is the most common Sun sign in the United States and Canada, Gemini in England and Wales and Australia, and Capricorn is the rarest in four of the five registries counted. Both facts have two causes, and the page separates them.
Last updated: September 7, 2026
The answer, then the reasons
Across the United States from 2000 to 2014, 8.96% of babies were born under Leo and 7.63% under Capricorn. A flat spread would give every sign 8.33%. The gap looks small on paper and is large in people: for the 4.0 million births of 2014 alone it is a difference of about 62,000 babies between the most and least common sign.
Two things produce it. First, the Sun does not spend equal time in each sign. Earth moves fastest in early January, near perihelion, so the Sun crosses Capricorn in about 29.4 days and Leo in about 31.3. That alone would make Leo 6% more common than Capricorn. Second, births are seasonal: in the United States they peak from July to September and trough in winter. The summer peak lands on Cancer, Leo and Virgo. The tables below show both effects, and the ratio column shows how much of each sign's rank is astronomy and how much is the maternity ward.
The same question in three other countries
England and Wales publish births by exact date, so that column needs no allocation at all: Gemini leads at 8.83% and Capricorn trails at 7.58% for 2025. Canada (2024, monthly, preliminary) puts Leo first and Sagittarius last by a hair over Capricorn. Australia (2023, monthly) puts Gemini first and Capricorn last, even though its seasons are reversed: the southern winter trough falls in June and July, but the Sun's short winter signs and the northern-style December dip in registrations still leave Capricorn at the bottom. The pattern that survives every registry is the astronomical one; the order at the top moves with each country's birth season.
What this page is not
It is not a claim about personality, luck or the year ahead. It is a count. Nothing here says a Capricorn is special for being rarer; it says fewer of them were born, and why. No astrologer is named as the author; the byline is Shymea Editorial, and the sources are named beside every table.
The ranking: 62,187,026 United States births, 2000–2014
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration, births by calendar day 2000–2014 (cross-checked against CDC/NCHS 1994–2003 daily counts; overlapping years agree to 0.01 points). A flat spread would give every sign 8.33%.
| Rank | Sun sign | Births | Share | Against a flat spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Leo | 5,572,150 | 8.96% | +0.63 pts |
| 2 | Virgo | 5,557,333 | 8.94% | +0.61 pts |
| 3 | Cancer | 5,499,464 | 8.84% | +0.51 pts |
| 4 | Gemini | 5,324,042 | 8.56% | +0.23 pts |
| 5 | Libra | 5,297,033 | 8.52% | +0.19 pts |
| 6 | Taurus | 5,155,811 | 8.29% | -0.04 pts |
| 7 | Scorpio | 5,095,914 | 8.19% | -0.14 pts |
| 8 | Aries | 5,062,002 | 8.14% | -0.19 pts |
| 9 | Pisces | 4,998,350 | 8.04% | -0.29 pts |
| 10 | Sagittarius | 4,945,436 | 7.95% | -0.38 pts |
| 11 | Aquarius | 4,932,117 | 7.93% | -0.40 pts |
| 12 | Capricorn | 4,747,374 | 7.63% | -0.70 pts |
How much is astronomy and how much is the maternity ward: 2014
The “Sun days” column is how long the Sun actually spent in each sign in 2014, from the ephemeris; the ephemeris-only share is what the ranking would be if births were spread evenly through the year. The ratio is the registry’s share divided by that: above 1.00 means the birth season adds to the sign, below 1.00 it subtracts.
| Sun sign | Births 2014 | Share | Sun days in sign | Ephemeris-only share | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leo | 367,463 | 9.16% | 31.29 | 8.57% | 1.069 |
| Virgo | 354,596 | 8.84% | 30.90 | 8.46% | 1.045 |
| Cancer | 351,118 | 8.75% | 31.45 | 8.61% | 1.017 |
| Gemini | 345,704 | 8.62% | 31.33 | 8.58% | 1.005 |
| Libra | 342,548 | 8.54% | 30.39 | 8.32% | 1.026 |
| Taurus | 332,458 | 8.29% | 30.96 | 8.48% | 0.978 |
| Scorpio | 331,338 | 8.26% | 29.90 | 8.19% | 1.009 |
| Aries | 324,107 | 8.08% | 30.46 | 8.34% | 0.969 |
| Pisces | 322,974 | 8.05% | 29.96 | 8.20% | 0.982 |
| Aquarius | 317,994 | 7.93% | 29.59 | 8.10% | 0.979 |
| Sagittarius | 315,311 | 7.86% | 29.56 | 8.09% | 0.971 |
| Capricorn | 304,922 | 7.60% | 29.44 | 8.06% | 0.943 |
By country and city, from each registry
Each column is one statistics office’s own counts placed against the same ephemeris. Where a registry publishes months or quarters rather than days, the births are spread across days using the US day-of-year pattern; the “allocation” row shows the largest change any sign would see if they were spread evenly instead.
| Sun sign | United States 2000–2014 · daily | England & Wales 2025 · daily | Canada 2024 · monthly | Australia 2023 · monthly | New York City 2024 · quarterly |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aries | 8.14% | 8.27% | 8.20% | 8.27% | 8.14% |
| Taurus | 8.29% | 8.53% | 8.50% | 8.60% | 8.25% |
| Gemini | 8.56% | 8.83% | 8.68% | 8.77% | 8.51% |
| Cancer | 8.84% | 8.79% | 8.93% | 8.75% | 8.67% |
| Leo | 8.96% | 8.75% | 8.95% | 8.65% | 8.72% |
| Virgo | 8.94% | 8.47% | 8.82% | 8.61% | 8.71% |
| Libra | 8.52% | 8.49% | 8.50% | 8.52% | 8.57% |
| Scorpio | 8.19% | 8.17% | 8.23% | 8.33% | 8.32% |
| Sagittarius | 7.95% | 7.83% | 7.67% | 7.64% | 8.09% |
| Capricorn | 7.63% | 7.58% | 7.69% | 7.54% | 7.93% |
| Aquarius | 7.93% | 8.08% | 7.92% | 8.07% | 8.00% |
| Pisces | 8.04% | 8.21% | 7.91% | 8.25% | 8.10% |
| Births counted | 62,187,026 | 585,396 | 365,737 | 277,612 | 100,218 |
| Allocation uncertainty | none (daily data) | none (daily data) | ≤ 0.17 pts | ≤ 0.19 pts | ≤ 0.27 pts |
| Source | Social Security Administration | Office for National Statistics, births by date of birth (Table 12, 2025 registrations) | Statistics Canada, table 13-10-0415-01, live births by month (2024, preliminary) | Australian Bureau of Statistics, Births, Australia, month of occurrence (2023) | NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (provisional) |
Common questions
- What is the rarest zodiac sign?
- Capricorn, by count, in the United States, England and Wales and Australia; in Canada Sagittarius edges it by 0.02 points. Across 62 million registered United States births from 2000 to 2014, 7.63% were Capricorns against 8.96% Leos.
- What is the most common zodiac sign?
- It depends on the country's birth season. Leo in the United States (2000–2014) and Canada (2024); Gemini in England and Wales (2025) and Australia (2023). In every registry the top three come from Gemini, Cancer, Leo and Virgo, the signs in which the Sun spends the most days.
- Why is Capricorn the rarest sign?
- Two reasons that stack. The Sun spends about 29.4 days in Capricorn, the fewest of any sign, because Earth moves fastest near perihelion in early January. And late December to mid-January is the low point of the birth calendar in every country counted here, including Australia, where the season is reversed but the holiday dip in births is not.
- What is the rarest zodiac sign in the world?
- No global registry publishes births by day, so a worldwide count does not exist and any page claiming one is guessing. What can be said: the astronomical cause (the Sun's unequal days per sign) is the same everywhere and favours Cancer through Virgo; the seasonal cause differs by country, and in the southern hemisphere the birth peak falls in different signs. Country rows are added here as their statistics offices publish the data.
- Which zodiac sign has the most births?
- Leo: 5,572,150 of the 62,187,026 United States births from 2000 to 2014.
- Does the ranking change from year to year?
- Only at the margins. Leo, Virgo and Cancer lead every year in the series and Capricorn trails every year; the order among the middle signs shifts by a few hundredths of a point with the calendar and the exact ingress times.
How this was computed
For each year, the instant the Sun’s apparent geocentric longitude crosses each multiple of 30° was found from JPL DE442 through Skyfield 1.53, by daily scan and bisection to the second. Each calendar day’s registered births were assigned to the sign in force at the start of that day in the registry’s time zone; on the twelve ingress days the births were split in proportion to the hours before and after the crossing. United States days use Central Time as the population-weighted reference. The two federal daily series (Social Security Administration 2000–2014, CDC/NCHS 1994–2003) were run separately and agree on every sign to 0.01 points in their overlapping years. Related: Study 04, rising signs by latitude; full methodology.
The dataset
United States births by Sun sign for every year 2000–2014 and the 15-year total. Published under CC BY 4.0 — reuse it, with attribution.
Download the table (CSV)