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Curious about the origins of generational names? Although the Pew Research Center has updated their criteria for categorizing generations, the process of naming these groups is often far less clear-cut.
Interestingly, no single authority decides these generational titles. Instead, multiple names often emerge and compete until one dominates—a trend seen in the rivalry between iGen, Generation Z, and Post-Millennials.
While Gen Z ultimately became the accepted name for the latest generation, older generational labels typically stem from a writer coining a term, followed by a loose consensus among others—with a few missteps along the way.
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Baby Boomers (1946-1964)
The term “baby boom” to describe a significant rise in births traces back to the 1800s. In 1941, LIFE magazine highlighted the growing birthrate, attributing it to older couples starting families after the Great Depression and marriages spurred by the peacetime draft of 1940, even quipping that “the U.S. baby boom is bad news for Hitler.”
However, the generation now known as Baby Boomers wouldn’t arrive until a few years later, as soldiers returned from war and the economy experienced a significant upswing.
While those born between 1946 and 1964 are now universally called Baby Boomers, the term didn’t gain traction until the tail end of that era. In January 1963, the Newport News Daily Press cautioned about a surge in college enrollments as the “Baby Boomers” reached adulthood. That same year, the Oxford English Dictionary cited the Salt Lake Tribune, noting, “Statistics reveal that ... excessive TV watching places added stress on furniture, causing upholstered chairs to wear out three to four times faster than in the pre-television, pre-baby-boomer era.”
Interestingly, another term for individuals born in this era was Generation X; as London’s The Observer remarked in 1964, “Similar to past generations, ‘Generation X’—as the editors label today’s under-25 crowd—demonstrates a distinct lack of trust in their elders.”
Generation X (1965-1980)
This remark in The Observer referred to a book titled Generation X by Jane Deverson and Charles Hamblett, published around that time. Years later, Joan Broad purchased a copy at a garage sale, her son discovered it, and he became enamored with the title.
That son was Billy Idol, who, in his memoir, wrote, “We instantly believed it would be a perfect name for our new band, as we both identified with a youth movement that felt abandoned by the future and disconnected from the current social and cultural landscape. We also thought the name embodied the myriad ways we could express our generation’s emotions and ideas.” The band Generation X marked the start of Billy Idol’s career.
However, the term Generation X didn’t gain widespread recognition until 1991, when Douglas Coupland’s Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture was published. The book resonated deeply, capturing the essence of early ’90s culture and popularizing terms like McJob and pamphleting, while solidifying the name for an entire generation.
Millennials (1981-1996)
Following Generation X, it seemed logical to name the next group Generation Y. This reasoning appeared in several newspaper articles in the early ’90s, predicting the rise of Generation Y. (While Advertising Age is often credited with introducing the term in 1993, it was actually used as early as 1992.) However, as psychologist Jean Twenge noted in an NPR interview, labels tied to the previous generation, like baby busters, rarely endure.
In 1991, authors Neil Howe and William Strauss introduced the term Millennials in their book Generations. As Forbes reported, they believed the name was fitting since the oldest members of this generation would graduate high school in 2000, a year that captured global attention.
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This article was first published in 2018 and has been revised in 2024.
