Plan Your Meetings

Shakespeare wrote, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” But that doesn’t explain why there are so many different names for the generation born between 1980-1995 (or 1977-2000, depending on your source).

Gen Yers are the little brothers and sisters of Generation X (1960s-1970s), who were named after a self-consciously “hip” book by Douglas Coupland. Originally meant as a derisive term, Gen X stuck, largely because it replaced the even more insulting “Baby Bust” label.

“Gen Y” has never been popular with the generation it describes, mainly because it’s derivative. But, the terms created to replace it are not much better. Generation Next (Gen Next) comes from a Pepsi commercial filmed during the first wave of Spice Girl popularity. Echo Boomers reflects the live births boom between 1989-1993, and reminds Gen Yers that most of them are the children of late-blooming (or re-married) Baby Boomers.

The latest terms — Millennials, Digital Generation and Internet Generation (iGen, natch) — are attempts to give the generation a name that’s more independent and reflective of their place in history. But, confusingly, none of the prior terms have fallen out of use, and no single term has become the “correct” one to use.

It could be worse, though. According to Wikipedia, there’s a “heretofore lost generation,” born between 1954 and 1964 that was incorrectly lumped into the Baby Boomer and Gen X cliques. The name? Generation Jones, which refers to “the unrequited craving felt by this generation of unfulfilled expectations.”