Are You Gen X, Y, or Z?

Thank you to the Wall Street Journal’s Style & Substance column for clarifying which label means what.

baby boomers

Lowercase when writing about those born during the bulge in U.S. population growth that appeared after World War II, known as the baby boom and generally considered by demographers to be the 19 years from 1946 through 1964.

Generation X

The term generally applies to people born in the U.S. from 1965 to 1980, after the baby boom. Also: Gen X and Gen Xers.

Generation Y

The term generally applies to people born in the U.S. from about 1981 until about 1996. The group is better known as millennials.

millennials

Lowercase when writing about the generation less commonly known as Generation Y, which is generally defined as people born from about 1981 until 1996. (However, as discussed before, millennials can often come off as snide shorthand, a trap we don’t want to fall into.)

Generation Z

The term generally applies to people born in the U.S. from about 1997 until 2012.

Generation Alpha

The term generally applies to people born in the U.S. after about 2012.