# Origin of candles on a B-day cake.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-candles-on-a-b-day-cake/7070>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 6, 2000, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-candles-on-a-b-day-cake/7070 "2000-02-06T19:50:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Kent4mmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/34f0e0/32.png) [@Kent4mmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent4mmy)\
**Post date:** [February 6, 2000, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-candles-on-a-b-day-cake/7070/1 "2000-02-06T19:50:00Z")

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Why do we put candles on top of a birthday cake to correspond with how old we are that particular year? How long have people been singing “Happy birthday to you”?

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**Author:** ![mikan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@mikan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikan)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2000, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-candles-on-a-b-day-cake/7070/2 "2000-02-12T06:58:00Z")

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I don’t really care about this topic per se, but good golly, how can we let a legitimate GQ question pass through without even a single WAG?! It just isn’t right.

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**Author:** ![mikan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@mikan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikan)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2000, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-candles-on-a-b-day-cake/7070/3 "2000-02-12T07:06:00Z")

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Whoops – forgot to add that I read somewhere that Martin Luther has been credited, by some, with the “invention” of the lighted Christmas tree. So if someone could think of putting candles on a tree (nice fire hazard, huh?), then why not on a celebratory cake?

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**Author:** ![aseymayo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a88e57/32.png) [@aseymayo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aseymayo)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2000, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-candles-on-a-b-day-cake/7070/4 "2000-02-12T07:13:00Z")

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**mikan** , you’re absolutely right. Here goes:

Candles on a birthday cake are the result of very bad hand-writing. A baker somewhere in Scotland misread the recipe card and put candles instead of cand **i** es on a customer’s birthday order.

That baker was Alexander Fleming’s father and the customer was Winston Churchill!

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**Author:** ![DAVEW0071](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e19b73/32.png) [@DAVEW0071](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DAVEW0071)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2000, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/origin-of-candles-on-a-b-day-cake/7070/5 "2000-02-12T12:46:00Z")

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And people have been singing “Happy Birthday To You” just about since it was written, which was early 20th Century, I think.

Two schoolteacher sisters wrote it (originally as “Good Morning To You” IIRC)and it’s still under copyright, so everytime it’s performed publicly, they or their estates get dough. There is much info on this song in the Guinness Book of World Records, as HBTY is the most sung song in the world. That will provide you with the Straight Dope, as I’m more or less winging it on memory and half a cup of coffee.

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The Dave-Guy  
“Since my daughter’s only half-Jewish, can she go in up to her knees?” J.H. Marx