How old is Mildred now? FiveThirtyEight's name ages, 12 years later

In May 2014, Nate Silver and Allison McCann at FiveThirtyEight asked a question nobody had answered: how old is the typical living American with a given first name? Using Social Security's baby-name records and life tables, they found that the median living Mildred was 78, the median Liam was 3, and the median Violet was 47 (their article, archived; FiveThirtyEight has since closed).

Twelve years later, we ran the same names through the same method with current data. If names simply aged along with the people who have them, every median would be 12 years higher. Almost none are.

Violet got 38 years younger

In 2014, FiveThirtyEight flagged Violet as a puzzle: a median of 47, but almost nobody actually near 47, because the name had two groups, women born in the early 1900s and a new wave of little girls. Since then the little girls have taken over. Parents gave the name to 7,546 babies in 2025 alone, and the median living Violet is now 9. See the Violet chart.

Mildred and Gertrude didn't age at all

The median Mildred was 78 in 2014 and is 78 today. The median Gertrude was 80 and is 80. Nobody stopped aging: the oldest Mildreds and Gertrudes have died over these twelve years, and very few babies got either name, so the middle of the group stays put. For names like these, the median age is pinned near the far end of life.

Elmer got younger

FiveThirtyEight called Elmer the oldest male name, with a median of 66. Today the median Elmer is 64. A small but steady trickle of baby Elmers, together with the passing of the oldest generation, has pulled the middle down. Mabel shows the same pattern even more strongly: once a name for great-grandmothers, it is coming back fast (1,522 baby girls in 2025), and the median living Mabel is now 13.

The kids grew up, but not as fast as you'd think

Liam, Aiden, Jayden and Mason were FiveThirtyEight's kindergarten names, with medians of 3 to 6. Aiden and Jayden have aged roughly on schedule. Liam aged only 6 years, from 3 to 9, because it became the most popular boy's name in the country and every year's new Liams keep pulling the median down.

Brittany aged right on schedule

In 2014, half of living Brittanys were between 19 and 25. Today half are between 32 and 38, almost exactly twelve years on. That's what a name with one big moment does: nearly every Brittany was born in the same short window (87% of them in a single 15-year stretch), so the whole group ages together. Joshua, the youngest of FiveThirtyEight's top boys' names in 2014, did the same: 22 then, 34 now.

How the two estimates differ

Both use Social Security's baby-name counts and its life tables, but the details differ, so treat changes of a year or two as noise. FiveThirtyEight counted ages as of January 1, 2014, adjusted SSA's counts up to Census birth totals, and interpolated life tables published by decade. We use SSA's counts as recorded (births 1880–2025) and the 2026 Trustees Report's cohort tables for each single birth year, with ages as of 2026. FiveThirtyEight's medians were for one sex; ours combine both, which matters only for names given to boys and girls alike. Full details on our methodology page.

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