Generations and their names

I hate not knowing things.

The latest? What exactly constitutes a millennial? And what’s all that Gen X/Y business?

It turns out that there’s actually not broad consensus on exactly what the date are, but they look something like this:

Generation Name Birthdate Range
Silent Generation 1925-1945
Baby Boomers 1946-1964
Generation X 1965-1979
Millennials / Generation Y 1980-1996
Generation Z 1997—Present

They tend to run 15-20 years, which means we’re around the time for needing a new term for those post Generation Z.

Also interesting to me: at the time of this writing, “millennials” are between 20 and 36 years old. I’ve taken a lot of the “kids these days” complaints about millennials to refer to teens, which would more accurately be Generation Z. Ironically, those born on or after 2000 are not millennials. (I used to assume the term referred to those born this millennium.)

The lines are insanely broad, though. Wikipedia captures this well:

For the purposes of this list, “Western world” can be taken to mean North America, Europe, South America, and Oceania. However, it should also be noted that many variations may exist within the regions, both geographically and culturally, which mean that the list is broadly indicative, but necessarily very general.

It seems that virtually no one agrees on exactly where a generation ends or begins, so you’ll see several years of variation depending on the source.