When we got our new puppy last year, we named her during the car ride home.
But the next day, Marti and I looked at each other and confessed, “We don’t like the puppy’s name.”
So we changed it to something we liked slightly better. Four hours later, we looked at each other and said, “Meh, still not quite right.”
The puppy went nameless for three days while we scoured books and websites for a name that met our criteria: it had to have one syllable, it couldn’t sound like “sit,” and it had to fit her personality.
Our puppy - now 17 months old - is named “Ru.” Ru is Sansrit for “light.”
Names are helpful. They’re implicit agreements. When I say “Ru,” she faces my direction. When she barks, I face hers.
When we talk about generations, we use names, too. They’re implicit agreements; when I say “Baby Boomers,” you think of a gigantic generation that will be “forever young.” When I say “Generation X,” you think of the Breakfast Club, Kurt Cobain, or flannel shirts and coffee houses.
Generational labels are not perfect, but they are helpful.
In our work, we use the names that Strauss and Howe use in their book Generations:
- Lost Generation (1883-1900)
- G.I. Generation (1901-1924)
- Silent Generation (1925-1942)
- Boom (a.k.a. Baby Boom) Generation (1943-1960)
- 13th Generation (a.k.a. Gen X) (1961-1981)
- Millennial Generation (1982-2000)
- ????? (2001-)
Can you see the problem here?
Since 2001, we’ve given birth to a new, next generation that - to this point - remains nameless.
Our puppy, Ru, was nameless for thirty-six hours. Our next generation - whose oldest member entered sixth grade this fall - has been nameless for ten years.
This is driving me bonkers, and I need your help.
Wouldn’t it be cool if we - this community of four readers, plus my staff - picked and popularized the name for America’s next generation?
There’s no pressure; the bar has been set pretty low. Here are some of the contenders that have been published so far:
- “The Homeland Generation” by Strauss and Howe in this article. Feels a little too “George W.” to me. A little too terrifying. I’m used to hearing the word “security” after “homeland,” as in “the department of homeland security…” I would hate for our next American generation to be so tightly connected to terrorism or security.
- “Generation Z” by many, many unimaginative people. This label even has its own wikipedia entry here .
- The “New Silents.” This is Strauss and Howe (again) from their book The Fourth Turning . Their rationale is that every fourth generations’ archtype repeats itself. And since “Silents” were the archtype four generations ago (see list above), “New Silents” could work for the current version.
- A couple years ago, Harvard Business Review blogger (and past client) Tammy Erickson suggested “Re-Gen.” Again, this feels too related to previous generations. Recycled. Reused.
The next generation deserves its own name that can stand independent from other generations, even while it is in relation to them.
What do you think? What should America’s next generation be called?
Comments
Here are my ideas…
* “Generation 247” (connected 24-7)
* “Generation ADA” (psychologists suggests there will be high rate of Attention Deficit Disorder because their dependency on technology is high and attention span is much lower)
* “Dreamers” - I read somewhere that some people are referring to them as “Dreamer Generation “.
“Celestial” generation because in their lifetime humans will 1) obtain conclusive proof of Extraterrestrial life and 2) have a permanent residence on a non-Earth object.
Transformation Generation - this world is going through some major changes right now - budgets are crashing, technology is booming.
How about Generation MM.
How about the techo generation?
Marijuana generation.
Its so popular now a days.
The Anonymous Generation. Due to their time spent in annonymity on the internet while growing up
Anything referring to technology or Social Netorking would be a good name. People born after 2001 are the first generation to be archived on Social Networks (My Space / Facebook)
How can you define that which hasn’t developed? Personally, I believe every generation should define themselves. For instance, as a member of “Generation Y”, we should be re-named as the “Social Networkers”, for obvious reasons. But who knows what will happen in the future? For all we tech-heads know, the next generation may rebel against the now traditional use of technology. Something entirely different can come to define them, like WW3 or something…
I think that this generation is going to pick their own name when the time comes. I personally like the name Millenials for my generation, also called Generation Y. For Generation Z, I vote they be called the Digital Generation, or the Digitals. I could see that catching on.
It will problebly end up as the Facebook generation or the cell phone generation
I think the Jetson Generation sums it up. All of the technological advances and information they now have leaves them to just push buttons and the world is at their fingertips.
Our group, Magid Generational Strategies (www.magid.com) is calling them The Pluralist Generation. Everything about the world they are growing up in is pluralistic—lack of majority. See racial and ethnic pluralism (Census), see lack of majority HH in Amercia (less than 50% married with children), see angst over population change (Arizona immigration, Texas affirmative action). The members will be called Plurals and they will have to deal with all of these issues in their child and adulthood.
New Silent, to me, sounds like a place holder. But the Strauss-Howe theory does imply that this first Generation of the 21st Century will be remarkably similar to the Silent. During the Depression & WWII, when the Silent were children, parents were clamping down on the boundaries of children, trying to shield off the family from the social storms howling outside. If this focus on security is to repeat, and it looks as if it will, Homeland Generation would indeed be perfectly apt.
Coming of age, the Silent were given no rewards for enduring the Depression & WWII Crisis. They came to be seen as the generation-after, from whom no great deeds were expected. Echos of this are already being felt among today’s young children. They have not been named yet, and their eldest are about to enter high school. Compare this to Millennials, who were named before entering 3rd grade. We see these “New Silent” as the end. Even though I’m not fond of the term “Generation Z”, I have to admit that it is fitting.
New face generation
We just call it Generation Z. I’m from Generation Z.
I say we call the next generation generation love and peace
I read somewhere calling it the Post Generation. With two implications.
1. Post 9/11, Post black president, post legalization of gay marriage, etc.
2. Posts everything online.
I think the Post Generation is pretty accurate, but why not give this generation some love. Storge is the form of love between friends. The Storge Generation
I’ve been calling them the Connected Generation, since they’ve always had instant, easy access to information and communication.
someone used ‘digital native’—seems perfect to me—never knew anything but digital. digital is their native lifestyle
Looming loss of Second Amendment rights, financial collapse of the US Economy, UN Control, Agenda 21 and Chinese Sustainable Development in America. These things make it clear to me what the next generations name should be. The DOOMED! generation.
I think the next generation should be called the Digital Revolution generation. I agree with Joanna with using Digital but I have included the word Revolution.
They can be called The Digi Rev’s. They were born into a world where the www existed, where people use mobile phones, where Skype and FaceTime allow distances to be erased where everything is being made instant and the amount of information they have access to is more than any other generation that existed before them.
