Nameberry
Generation X Names, and the Baby Names of Every Generation
Generation X got its name as the generation after the baby boom. The first names that date a Gen X adult are not a mystery: a handful of names took an enormous share of US births from 1965 through 1980. A single name can mislead, though. Mary was already the top name for boomer girls and was still high for Gen X. A family of names is a clearer signal. Guess your generation from your family's first names.
Generation X names
These are the names US babies were most often given from 1965 through 1980, the years Gen X was born. Counts are Social Security births.
Girls: Jennifer (about 752,000 births, peak year 1972), Lisa (peak 1965), Michelle, Kimberly, Melissa, Amy, and Angela. Heather peaked in 1975 and is one of the names that most clearly dates those years.
Boys: Michael (about 1.19 million births in that window; his single biggest year was 1957, so he belongs to boomer parents too), David, James, John, Robert, Christopher, and Jason. Jason peaked in 1977, with about 55,600 births that year, and is the boys' name most tied to Gen X rather than the generation before.
"Gen X baby names" can mean two different lists. The names above are the names Gen X people have. The names a Gen X parent chose for a child are the millennial and Gen Z lists linked below.
Boomer names
Boomer names are the names given to US babies from 1946 through 1964. The given name Boomer is a different page.
Girls: Mary, Linda (peak 1947, about 99,700 births that year), Patricia, Susan, Barbara, Karen, Deborah (peak 1954), and Nancy.
Boys: James, Robert, John, Michael, David, William, Richard, and Thomas.
Gen Alpha baby names
Gen Alpha is the cohort born from 2013 on. These are the names leading US births from 2013 through 2024, which is also the set a family-name tool is most likely to suggest for a next child.
Girls: Olivia (peak 2014), Emma, Sophia, Isabella, Ava, Mia, Charlotte, and Amelia.
Boys: Liam (highest year in this data: 2024), Noah, William, James, Oliver, Elijah, Benjamin, and Mason.
Guess my generation uses this kind of shift, across a whole family, to estimate a generation and suggest kids' names.
Millennial and Gen Z names
Millennial names are the names US babies were given from 1981 through 1996.
Gen Z names are the names that came next, from the late 1990s into the early 2010s.
Can you guess a generation from first names alone?
One name is a weak guess. Jennifer points at the 1970s. James has been common for more than a century. A parent, a child, and a grandparent together are much more specific, because each slot has its own peak. Guess my generation does that from the first names you enter. Nothing you type is saved.