How old is your name? Median ages of first names in the US, France and Norway

A first name is a good clue to a generation and a poor clue to a person. Among Americans alive today, the median Betty is 78, the median Brittany is 36 and the median Liam is 10. Half of all living Brittanys were born within six years of each other. Half of all living Alices, on the other hand, are anywhere between 18 and 78, because the name was common in the 1940s and came back after 2010. And the same name can belong to a different generation across a border: the median Louise is 74 in the United States and 16 in France.

The figures below come from official birth records in three countries, weighted by the share of each birth year still alive in 2026. They are the same numbers our age from name API returns, computed on 9 October 2026.

How the ages are estimated

Birth records say how many babies were registered with each name in each year: the US Social Security Administration from 1880, INSEE in France from 1900 and Statistics Norway from 1945. Not all of them are still alive. Each birth year is therefore multiplied by the share of that cohort that survives to 2026, taken from the cohort life tables of the Social Security Administration (Actuarial Study 120). A Betty born in 1940 counts for less than a Brittany born in 1990.

What remains is an estimate of the living people with each name, by year of birth. The median age splits them in half; the middle half is the range from the 25th to the 75th percentile. The method is the one FiveThirtyEight used in 2014; for the names we compared, such as Brittany, Jennifer and Linda, our US medians match theirs once their ages are moved forward twelve years.

"Common" below means at least 100,000 estimated living people with the name in the United States (529 names), 50,000 in France (285) and 5,000 in Norway (248).

The oldest and the youngest common names

Oldest in the US	Median age	Middle half	Youngest in the US	Median age	Middle half
Betty	78	69–85	Mateo	7	4–11
Shirley	77	69–84	Asher	8	5–13
Judith	76	67–81	Camila	9	5–14
Dorothy	76	66–84	Scarlett	9	6–13
Doris	76	67–84	Harper	9	6–12
Joan	75	67–83	Hudson	9	5–13
Phyllis	75	67–82	Oliver	9	5–14
Joyce	74	66–81	Grayson	10	6–14
Linda	73	66–77	Liam	10	5–14

All nine of the oldest common names are women’s names. Part of the reason is that women live longer: more of the Bettys and Dorothys born in the 1930s and 1940s are still alive than of the boys born in the same years, so their names stay common enough to make the list.

The most common names sit in between. The median living Michael is 51, James 58, Robert 61, Mary 69 and Daniel 41.

Fad names and timeless names

Some names were popular for a few years and then almost disappeared. For those, the age is unusually precise.

Name	Median age	Middle half	Width
Brittany	36	32–38	6 years
Debbie	66	62–68	6 years
Harper	9	6–12	6 years
Aidan	20	16–23	7 years
Chelsea	34	29–37	8 years
Debra	68	63–71	8 years

Other names have been given steadily for a century, or fell out of use and came back. For those the median says very little:

Name	Median age	Middle half	Width
Josephine	28	10–71	61 years
Alice	65	18–78	60 years
Ruby	27	12–71	59 years
Vivian	32	12–69	57 years
Eleanor	13	6–63	57 years
Evelyn	20	9–65	56 years

This is the main thing to know before using a name as an age signal. For Brittany it narrows a person down to a six-year window; for Alice it narrows almost nothing.

Names that came back

The widest names are mostly comeback names: common among people born in the 1920s to 1950s, rare for decades, then popular again. Their living bearers are split between grandmothers and children.

Name	Median age	Aged 70 or older	Under 20
Evelyn	20	21%	50%
Eleanor	13	22%	60%
Ruby	27	26%	41%
Josephine	28	27%	41%
Vivian	32	25%	38%
Alice	65	43%	26%

The median of a comeback name falls between the two generations, at an age few of its bearers actually have. Only the range shows what is going on.

The same name in a different generation

Names cross borders at different times. Among the 242 names carried by at least 20,000 living people in both the United States and France (accents ignored), the largest gaps are these:

Name	Median age in the US	Median age in France
Louise	74	16
Rose	66	13
Arthur	62	17
Alice	65	22
Leon	50	9
Madeleine	21	78
Geneviève	19	75
Simone	30	80
Christian	25	69
Isabelle	17	58

Louise, Rose and Arthur are grandparents’ names in America and children’s names in France. Madeleine, Geneviève and Simone go the other way: old-fashioned in France, recent in the United States. An age estimate without a country can be off by half a century.

French names also show the fad pattern clearly. Half of all living French Jennifers are between 36 and 42, half of all Kevins between 30 and 37, and half of all Nathalies between 53 and 60. In Norway, the oldest common names are Gerd (73), Bjørg (72) and Aud (71), and the youngest Olivia (9) and Liam (10). The Norwegian series starts in 1945, so Norwegians born before then are missing and the oldest names come out somewhat too young.

When gender changes the generation

For names that moved from boys to girls, the two groups are different generations. In the United States, the median male Stevie is 57 and the median female Stevie 12; male Aubreys are 47 and female ones 14; male Sidneys 58 and female ones 26. Without the gender, the median of such a name describes neither group, which is why the API takes an optional gender.

What this cannot tell you

One person. For most names the middle half spans 10 to 25 years, and for comeback names 50 or more. A name can describe the age profile of a customer list or a survey sample; it cannot tell you how old the person who filled in a form is. It must not be used for decisions about individuals, such as credit, hiring, insurance or age checks.
Immigrants. Birth records only cover people born in the country. Names common among people who moved there as adults look younger than the people who carry them.
The earliest years. The US records before 1937 undercount, because Social Security numbers were not yet universal. The French and Norwegian estimates use the US life table, as neither country publishes cohort tables back that far; the difference in survival is small next to the width of any name.

Try a name

The age from name API returns the median, the middle half and the middle 80% for a first name in the United States, France or Norway, and takes an optional country and gender:

curl "https://namegender.com/api/v1/age?name=Louise&country=FR" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"