Straits Times New Year babies: Famous for a day, memories for a lifetime

Of the few certainties in life, Mr Daniel Cheong is confident of this one fact: If you were born in Singapore in 1972, his birth year, he is older than you.

After all, the optometrist has seen proof of this every day for the last 53 years in a framed clipping of The Straits Times in his home.

Headlined “Mr. 1972 is a five-pounder”, the front-page story describes the infant Mr Cheong as a “red-faced curly-haired bundle of sleepiness” and a “little VIP”.

“It’s definitely a special memory, even if I don’t actually remember anything, of course,” he says.

He does remember, though, his first birthday present – a life-sized teddy bear courtesy of Cold Storage to mark his Jan 1 birth.

The youngest of six siblings adds: “No one else in my family has been featured in the newspapers besides me, so that’s quite special, too.”

Mr Cheong’s birth at Kandang Kerbau Hospital was also a notable occasion for The Straits Times as it was the first time it featured a New Year’s Day baby on its pages.

The practice continues to this day, serving as a reminder that journalism marks not just history but also the milestones of everyday lives.

That brief moment in the spotlight may not have changed his life, but Mr Cheong says it is certainly part of his identity. “When I meet someone born in 1972, I’ll joke with them that no matter when their birthday is, I’m their senior. Some don’t believe me until I explain why I’m so sure.”

He was one of several readers who responded to a print and online campaign that ran in January and February 2025 to find the New Year babies the paper had featured.

Being No. 1 is no easy feat. The chances of being born at 12.01am on Jan 1 are one in 525,600 (the number of minutes in a year).

So spare a thought for Mr Tan Jean Long, who was born four minutes past midnight on Jan 1, 1996.

The Kandang Kerbau Hospital staff told his mother, Mrs Rosalind Tan, that there was a strong chance her newborn would be Singapore’s first baby that year and to expect media coverage. She even had her make-up done after giving birth to prepare for the interview.

But it was not to be.

It turned out Mr Tan was pipped by seconds by another baby boy, Loh Zhenxin, who was born in the same hospital at 12.03am.

Twenty-nine years has been sufficient time for Mr Tan, who also came forward to share his story after hearing about The Straits Times’ campaign, to get over that photo finish.

“If only my head was a bit smaller, I might have come out faster and won,” laughs the human resources executive in a financial services company.

“It’s still a nice story and a fun fact I share when meeting people for the first time and they ask me to tell them something about myself.”

There is a rich history behind celebrating New Year babies. It dates back to Ancient Greece, where people marked the yearly rebirth of Dionysus, the god of wine and fertility, by parading around with a baby in a basket.

Some notable people born on Jan 1 include J. Edgar Hoover (1895), the first director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States; French politician and current president of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde (1956); and Singaporean Chew Shou Zi (1983), chief executive of TikTok.

In 1999, a six-part British TV series, Birthrace 2000, followed 10 British couples competing to have the first baby of the new millennium. Over in the US, a San Francisco company marketed “millennium conception kits” – complete with ovulation and pregnancy tests, candles and massage oils – while experts weighed in on the best time to conceive, pegging it between mid-March and late April 1999.

The feel-good vibes of stories about New Year babies drew readers and boosted street sales, says Mr Sunny Wee, 76, an editor at New Nation and The Straits Times from the 1970s to 1990s, who had a hand in shaping many of these stories.

“Family and friends would buy copies of that edition as a keepsake,” he says. “It was a happy story that we could also use on the front page.”

For Dunman High School student Zoe Wong, a framed copy of the story of her birth, photographed with her beaming parents, Sam and Melissa, and older sister Chloe, is a happy reminder of that special morning on Jan 1, 2010.

The family received gifts from Thomson Medical Centre where she was born, including a stroller, playpen and hampers.

Like other Jan 1 babies in Singapore, Zoe was given the option to start Primary 1 a year earlier than her birth-year peers. When she entered Ngee Ann Primary School in 2016, she had just turned six, while her classmates would all turn seven that year.

That sense of being just slightly out of place has not gone away. She gives the example of how her classmates got their NRIC in 2024, but since she was not turning 15 that year – the age one attains the pink card – she wasn’t eligible. “I was very Fomo (fear of missing out).”

Being born on Jan 1 has brought some peculiar benefits for software developer Kenny Siow, 29. He was always placed at the front of the queue whenever his class was sorted by birthdays. He has never had to change the default Jan 1 placeholder date when signing up online for a new membership or account.

But it’s not all upside. While the whole world counts down to Jan 1, New Year babies can sometimes be forgotten.

Mr Siow says: “Most people will wish you happy new year first. Maybe only your closest friends will remember. Also, it’s tough to find people to celebrate with as they usually have made plans since it’s Jan 1 and a public holiday.”

Nevertheless, there are positives, says Mr Cheong. “People are usually in a good mood on the day. Everyone looks forward to a fresh start.”

There was another positive for his mother, Madam Lee Lay Choo, 87. When she learnt that The Straits Times was interviewing her and her son for this story, she made sure she had enough time to do her hair.

“She didn’t really like that 1972 photo of herself in the hospital,” Mr Cheong says with a laugh. “She’s very happy she finally got a chance to take a better picture this time.”