Baby Boom FAQ

Yes. Baby Boom is a free daily baby-name game: each day you guess the year five U.S. baby names were at their most popular, using Social Security Administration data back to 1880. Each name is worth up to 100 points, for 500 in total.

It comes from the U.S. Social Security Administration, built from Social Security card applications since 1880. Names given to fewer than 5 babies of a sex in a year are not published, so very rare names never appear in the data at all.

Because U.S. births themselves boomed between 1946 and 1964. Ranking names by the raw number of babies would drag almost every name’s “peak” toward those years, simply because so many more babies were born overall. Measuring each name’s share of that year’s births instead reveals when the name itself was genuinely most fashionable.

Yes. The daily puzzle, the archive and unlimited mode are all free to play, with no account required.

A new set of five names unlocks at midnight in your own time zone. Everyone gets the same five names on the same calendar day.

Because Baby Boom tracks a name’s popularity separately for each sex, following the Social Security Administration’s own two categories. A name like Taylor or Casey can qualify for the pool on both lists, each with its own peak year — Taylor peaked as a girls’ name in 1993 and as a boys’ name in 1992, one year apart.

Unisex names are included whenever each sex’s version separately meets Baby Boom’s own pool rules: among the 350 most common names for that sex in its peak year, with a clear rise and fall in its share of births. Very rare names are excluded twice over — by that popularity cutoff, and because the Social Security Administration itself only publishes a name once at least 5 babies of a sex are given it in a year.

Baby Boom is made by Guessday, an independent site of original daily guessing games. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Social Security Administration.

Each of the five names is worth up to 100 points, for 500 in total. A guess within 2 years of the real peak earns full points; points fall steadily from there and reach zero once you are 25 years off, in either direction.

No. Hints never break a streak. A free hint reveals a 20-year window containing the peak and adds a light bulb to your shared result; a hint unlocked by watching an optional ad reveals the same window without one.

Yes. The archive lists every past daily puzzle. Archive rounds count toward your statistics, but only today’s puzzle extends your streak.

Back to 1880, the first year of Social Security Administration national baby name data, through to the latest year published. A name that was already declining in 1880 shows that year as its peak, simply because there is no earlier data to compare it against.