What Generation Does This Name Sound Like?
Every name that has topped the US charts, and the cohort it reads as. Jessica is Millennial, Madison is Gen Z, Liam is Alpha.
A first name usually places a birth decade across four cohorts: Mary and Robert read as Baby Boomer, Jessica and Christopher as Millennial, Madison and Jacob as Gen Z, and Liam, Olivia and Noah as Generation Alpha, in United States naming data.
What Generation Does This Name Sound Like?
Frequently asked
Can a name really tell you someone's age?
In the United States, often within about a decade. Naming fashions move fast and most popular names have a sharp peak — Jennifer peaked in the 1970s and is now rare for newborns.
Does this work outside the US?
No. This is US Social Security Administration data. Naming cycles differ enormously between countries and no comparable public-domain global dataset exists.
Why do some names appear across two cohorts?
A few names — Michael, Emma, Emily — stayed at the top for decades and genuinely span cohorts. Those are labelled with a range rather than a single generation.
More generations & age
Gen Alpha Names vs Gen Beta Names
The most recent US top ten, and what it says about where naming…
Gen Alpha vs Gen Beta Comparison
Side-by-side on 18 dimensions: technology, schooling, parents, economy, size and the decade that…
Three-Generation Map
Three generations of one family placed on the cohort timeline, with the technology…
Generation Decade Mapper
Which generations were children, workers and retirees in any decade from 1950 to…
Milestone Ages Across Six Generations
At what age each cohort hit the same life milestones — leaving home,…
The Middle of Every Generation
The midpoint birth year of each cohort — the single year most representative…
Generation at Any Date
How old each generation was, or will be, on any date you pick…
Next Generation Name Predictor
What comes after Beta? Generate plausible names for the 2040–2054 cohort using the…