How to play
Each day you get five class rosters. Each one lists six first names of American kids who were all born in the same year. Your job: guess the year.
- Read the roster. Three girls and three boys, mixed together. Nobody’s labeled.
- Pick a year on the slider, anywhere from 1925 to 2025. The −1 and +1 buttons nudge it one year. On a keyboard, the arrow keys move one year and Shift + arrow moves five.
- Lock it in. You’ll see the real year, how far off you were and your points. Then it’s on to the next round.
After round five you get your total out of 5,000, a breakdown of every name, and a spoiler-free result to share.
The five rounds
Ranks are for that year and that sex in the Social Security data.
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Front Row
The 10 most popular names of the year for each sex.
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Second Row
Popular, but not the very top: ranks 11 to 60.
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Middle Row
Familiar names a little further down: ranks 61 to 250.
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Trendsetters
Names that were unusually hot that year compared with the decades around it. Great for spotting fads.
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Deep Cut
Rarer names from ranks 251 to 1,000. The hardest round.
Thursday through Sunday, rounds 2 to 5 reach about 30% deeper into the rankings.
Scoring
Each round is worth up to 1,000 points. Points shrink the further off you are: points = 1,000 × e−(years off ÷ 10) rounded to the nearest point.
| Years off | Points | With hint |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1,000 | 800 |
| 1 | 905 | 724 |
| 2 | 819 | 655 |
| 3 | 741 | 593 |
| 5 | 607 | 485 |
| 8 | 449 | 359 |
| 10 | 368 | 294 |
| 15 | 223 | 179 |
| 20 | 135 | 108 |
| 30 | 50 | 40 |
What the squares mean
- 0–1 years off
- 2–3 years off
- 4–7 years off
- 8–14 years off
- 15 or more years off
The hint
Stuck? Tap Call two more names before you lock in. You’ll see two more names from the same class, one girl and one boy. That round is then worth up to 800 points instead of 1,000. One hint per round.
New puzzle every day
A new puzzle unlocks every day at 08:00 UTC. That’s midnight Pacific and 3 a.m. Eastern (1 a.m. and 4 a.m. during daylight saving time).
Streaks
Finish all five rounds of the day’s puzzle on the day it’s live and your streak goes up by one. Miss a day and it starts over. Your longest streak is kept separately. Puzzles from the archive don’t count.
Streaks and stats live in this browser. Clearing your site data or switching devices starts you fresh.
FAQ
Is every puzzle fair?
Every roster passes a fairness check before it’s used. We take the six names and score every birth year from 1925 to 2025 by how common those names were among U.S. babies born that year. A roster only makes the cut if the data’s best guess lands within 2 years of the answer and the range holding 80% of the likelihood is narrow: 10 to 18 years wide, depending on the round. The two hint names have to keep the best guess within 2 years too. Rosters that fail are thrown out and redrawn. Nobody hand-picks them.
Why does a 1960s name show up in 2018?
Because names don’t belong to just one era. Every name on a roster was genuinely common in the answer year, but common isn’t the same as peaking. Michael peaked in 1969 and still went to 11,756 boys in 2018. Other names skip a generation or two and come back: Evelyn went to 1,302 girls born in 1990 and 10,433 born in 2018. One name rarely gives the year away. Six together usually do.
Where does the data come from?
From the U.S. Social Security Administration’s public baby-name files, which count first names on Social Security card applications for babies born in the United States. The game uses births from 1925 to 2025. Sources, limits and checksums are on the Data page.
Do you collect my data?
Not the personal kind. There are no accounts. Your guesses, scores and streak are saved in your browser’s local storage, not on our servers. If analytics is turned on, we count visits and anonymous game events, like finishing a puzzle and the score, to see how hard puzzles are. Ads may use cookies. The Privacy page has the details.
Does everyone get the same puzzle?
Yes. Everyone plays the same five rosters each day, so you can compare scores with friends. A new puzzle unlocks at 08:00 UTC.
Can I play puzzles I missed?
Yes. Every past puzzle is in the Archive. Archive games are just for fun and don’t count toward your streak.