Birthday Trivia: Ideas and Printables

Who knows the birthday girl or boy best? Find out with a trivia showdown!

Trivia is always a big hit at get-togethers. However, what I’m about to talk about in this article is no ordinary trivia competition. It’s better than that, because rather than focusing on obscure factoids, the questions are all about someone the players know well.

Yep, it’s time for some birthday trivia, where the subject is the special person who’s being celebrated on their big day.

Birthday trivia is such a brilliant idea because it combines the fun of a party game with the traditional purpose of a birthday party – to lavish attention on the birthday boy or girl. That said, it does require a little extra prep to come up with the trivia questions. The good news is, I’ve got lots of ideas for you, along with some printables that can make your job easier.

What You Need

Game Rules

The rules for this game are dead simple. Just give the players paper and something to write with and ask the trivia questions. Once you’ve asked all the questions, go through the answers and have people grade themselves (we’re on the honor system here, people!).

For a smaller group, you can go around the table and have each person tell how many they got right. For larger groups (or if you just don’t want to put anybody on the spot) you can ask “did anyone get all of the questions right?” If no one aced the trivia challenge, go to “one wrong” and so forth until you find the person or persons who got the most right.

Whoever gets the most correct answers is the birthday trivia challenge winner. Hopefully you have some sort of prize to award them, even if it’s just an extra piece of birthday cake.

Questions

Here are a bunch of sample questions to consider for birthday trivia. Obviously, some might require you to interview the birthday person or do some research to find out the answers. My suggestion is to make at least half of the questions easy ones to get everyone engaged, then throw in a few tough ones to separate the winner(s) from the also-rans.

Multiple Choice Questions: If there’s a question you want to use, but it seems too tough for anyone to get, try framing it as a multiple choice question.

Nostalgia

• Who was president when they were born?
• What was the highest grossing movie the year they were born?
• What did a gallon of milk cost the year they were born?
• Who won the Super Bowl the year they were born?
• Which of the following songs topped the charts the day they were born? (Multiple choice)
• Which of the following celebrities shares a birthday with them? (Multiple choice)
• Which of the following major events was happening the day they were born? (Multiple choice)
• Which of the following was a fashion fad at the time they were born? (Multiple choice)

Personality

• What color are their eyes?
• What’s their middle name?
• What’s their favorite type of music?
• How many siblings do they have?
• What’s their favorite food?
• What’s their favorite color?
• What musical instrument do they play?
• What’s their drink of choice?

Life Events

• In what city were they born?
• What was their first job?
• Where did they live when they were growing up?
• What college did they go to?
• What was the first concert they went to?
• What was their first car?
• What sport did they play in high school?
• What was the mascot of the high school they went to?

Tiebreakers

These questions can be used to break a tie. The person who comes closest to the number is the winner.

• What was their birth weight?
• What time were they born?
• How many countries have they traveled to?
• How old were they when they got married?
• In what year was their first child born?

Printables

Finally, here a couple of printables you might find useful for your game of birthday trivia. The first is a worksheet you can use to write down your questions and answers:

The second PDF is an answer sheet you can pass out to the players: