How Old Is Someone Named Linda, Jason or Madison?

Ask Americans to picture a Linda and most will picture a grandmother. They’re right: half of all the Lindas born since 1925 were born in 1952 or earlier, which makes the typical Linda 74 years old in 2026. The typical Jason was born in 1980 (46 years old), and the typical Madison in 2005 (21).

Below are the typical birth years of familiar American names, worked out from every baby given each name in Social Security records from 1925 to 2025. “Typical” here means the median: half of the babies with the name were born before that year and half after.

Girls’ names

Boys’ names

What the median does and doesn’t tell you

A typical age is a starting point, not a verdict. Classic names such as Elizabeth and Joseph were given in large numbers for so long that a person with one of them could be almost any age. Fad names are the opposite: most Brittanys and Debras were born within a narrow window, so the median is a good guess (see the names that date you).

The median also counts births, not people alive today. Names whose bearers were born in the 1930s and 1940s have lost many of them since, so the Marys and Lindas you meet now skew a little younger than the table suggests.

Every name page shows the full curve, the share of each generation, and the states where the name was most popular, for the 2,000 most common names since 1925. Try the A–Z list.

Source: U.S. Social Security Administration national baby-name files, 1925–2025, both sexes combined. Peak year is when the name made up its largest share of babies of its main sex, in records back to 1880.