A person who was born on February 29 may be called a "leapling". In non-leap years they may celebrate their birthday on February 28 or March 1.

For legal purposes, their legal birthdays depend on how different laws count time intervals. In England and Wales the legal birthday of a leapling is February 28 in common years (see Leap Years, above). In Taiwan the legal birthday of a leapling is also February 28 in common years. In both cases, a person born on February 29, 1992 would have legally reached 18 years old on February 28, 2010.

"If a period fixed by weeks, months, and years does not commence from the beginning of a week, month, or year, it ends with the ending of the day which proceeds the day of the last week, month, or year which corresponds to that on which it began to commence. But if there is no corresponding day in the last month, the period ends with the ending of the last day of the last month.^[3]"

There are many instances in children's literature where a person's claim to be only a quarter of their actual age turns out to be based on counting their leap-year birthdays. A similar device is used in the plot of Gilbert and Sullivan's 1879 comic opera The Pirates of Penzance: As a child, Frederic was apprenticed to a band of pirates until the age of 21. Now, having passed his 21st year, he leaves the pirate band and falls in love. However, it turns out that the pirate indenture says that his apprenticeship does not end until his 21st birthday, and since he was born on February 29, that day will not arrive until he is in his eighties, and so he must leave his fiancée and return to the pirates.

The only notable person known to have both been born and died on February 29 was Sir James Wilson (1812-1880), Premier of Tasmania.

• 1468 – Pope Paul III (d. 1549)
• 1692 – John Byrom, English poet (d. 1763)
• 1724 – Eva Marie Veigel, ballet dancer and wife of actor David Garrick (d. 1822)
• 1736 – Ann Lee, American founder of Quakers (d. 1784)
• 1792 – Gioacchino Rossini, Italian composer (d. 1868)
• 1812 – Sir James Wilson, Premier of Tasmania (d. 1880)
• 1840 – John Philip Holland, Irish inventor (d. 1914)
• 1852 – Frank Gavan Duffy, Australian judge (d. 1936)
• 1860 – Herman Hollerith, American statistician (d. 1929)
• 1896 – Morarji Desai, Prime Minister of India (d. 1995)
• 1896 – William A. Wellman, American film director (d. 1975)
• 1904 – Jimmy Dorsey, American bandleader (d. 1957)
• 1904 – Pepper Martin, baseball player (d. 1965)
• 1904 – Rukmini Devi Arundale, Indian dancer and founder of Kalakshetra (d. 1986)
• 1908 – Balthus, French-Polish painter (d. 2001)
• 1908 – Dee Brown, American writer (d. 2002)
• 1908 – Alf Gover, English cricketer (d. 2001)
• 1916 – Dinah Shore, American singer and actress (d. 1994)
• 1920 – Arthur Franz, American actor (d. 2006)
• 1920 – James Mitchell, American actor
• 1920 – Michèle Morgan, French actress
• 1920 – Howard Nemerov, American poet (d. 1991)
• 1920 – Ivan Petrov, Russian operatic bass (d. 2003)
• 1924 – Al Rosen, American baseball player
• 1924 – David Beattie, New Zealand Governor-General (d. 2001)
• 1924 – Carlos Humberto Romero, President of El Salvador
• 1928 – Joss Ackland, English actor
• 1928 – Terry Lewis, Australian police commissioner
• 1928 – Tempest Storm, American burlesque performer
• 1932 – Jaguar, Brazilian cartoonist
• 1932 – Gene Golub, American mathematician (d. 2007)
• 1932 – Masten Gregory, American F1 Driver (d. 1985)
• 1932 – Reri Grist, African-American coloratura soprano
• 1936 – Jack Lousma, American astronaut
• 1936 – Henri Richard, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1936 – Alex Rocco, American actor
• 1940 – Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople
• 1940 – William H. Turner, Jr. American horse trainer
• 1944 – Phyllis Frelich, American actress
• 1944 – Dennis Farina, American actor
• 1944 – Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri, Italian illustrator
• 1944 – Ene Ergma, Estonian politician
• 1948 – Jirō Akagawa, Japanese novelist
• 1952 – Sharon Dahlonega Raiford Bush, American television personality
• 1952 – Tim Powers, American writer
• 1952 – Raisa Smetanina, Russian cross-country skier
• 1952 – Bart Stupak, American congressman
• 1956 – Jonathan Coleman, Anglo-Australian entertainer
• 1956 – Bob Speller, Canadian politician
• 1956 – Aileen Wuornos, American serial killer (d. 2002)
• 1956 – J. Randy Taraborrelli, American celebrity journalist
• 1956 – Jerry Fry, Baseball player
• 1960 – Ian McKenzie Anderson, British musician
• 1960 – Khaled, Algerian raï musician
• 1960 – Richard Ramirez, American serial killer
• 1960 – Tony Robbins, American motivational speaker
• 1964 – Lyndon Byers, Canadian hockey player and Boston radio personality
• 1968 – Suanne Braun, South African actress
• 1968 – Chucky Brown, American basketball player
• 1968 – Pete Fenson, American curler
• 1968 – Naoko Iijima, Japanese actress
• 1968 – Gonzalo Lira, Chilean-American novelist
• 1968 – Bryce Paup, American football player
• 1968 – Wendi Peters, British actress
• 1968 – Eugene Volokh, American law professor
• 1968 – Frank Woodley, Australian comedian
• 1972 – Antonio Sabàto, Jr., Italian-born actor
• 1972 – Dave Williams, American singer (Drowning Pool) (d. 2002)
• 1972 – Saul Williams, American rapper, poet, and actor
• 1972 – Pedro Zamora, Cuban-born American Real World housemate and AIDS activist (d. 1994)
• 1972 – Iván García, Cuban athlete
• 1976 – Ja Rule, American rapper and actor
• 1976 – Emma Barton, English actress
• 1976 – Terrence Long, American baseball player
• 1980 – Simon Gagné, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1980 – Taylor Twellman, American soccer player
• 1980 – Clinton Toopi, New Zealand rugby league footballer
• 1980 – Chris Conley, American musician
• 1980 – Ruben Plaza, Spanish cyclist
• 1980 – Michail Mouroutsos, Greek Olympic taekwondo gold medalist
• 1984 – Cam Ward, Canadian ice hockey player
• 1984 – Darren Ambrose, English footballer
• 1984 – Adam Sinclair, Indian field hockey player
• 1984 – Cullen Jones, American swimmer
• 1988 – Scott Golbourne, English footballer

Deaths

• 1528 – Patrick Hamilton, Scottish religious reformer (martyred) (b. 1504)
• 1592 – Alessandro Striggio, Italian composer (b. 1540)
• 1604 – John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1530)
• 1740 – Pietro Ottoboni, Italian cardinal (b. 1667)
• 1744 – John Theophilus Desaguliers, French philosopher (b. 1683)
• 1820 – Johann Joachim Eschenburg, German literary critic (b. 1743)
• 1868 – Ludwig I of Bavaria (b. 1786)
• 1880 – Sir James Wilson, Premier of Tasmania (b. 1812, also on 29 February)
• 1908 – Pat Garrett, U.S. gunslinger
• 1908 – John Hope, 1st Marquess of Linlithgow, first Governor-General of Australia (as Lord Hopetoun)
• 1928 – Ina Coolbrith, first poet laureate of California (b. 1841)
• 1940 – Edward Frederic Benson, English writer (b. 1867)
• 1944 – Pehr Evind Svinhufvud, President of Finland (b. 1861)
• 1956 – Elpidio Quirino, President of the Philippines (b. 1890)
• 1964 – Frank Albertson, American actor (b. 1909)
• 1968 – Tore Ørjasæter, Norwegian poet (b. 1886)
• 1980 – Gil Elvgren, American artist (b. 1914)
• 1992 – Ruth Pitter, English poet (b. 1897)
• 1992 – Earl Scheib, American car repainter (b. 1908)
• 1996 – Shams Pahlavi, Persian princess (b. 1917)
• 2000 – Dennis Danell, American artist (b. 1961)
• 2004 – Jerome Lawrence, American playwright (b. 1915)
• 2008 – Janet Kagan, American author (b. 1946)