老外常說的Millennials，Generation X，Baby Boomers啥意思？

漢語中用80后、90后、00后指在某一時期出生的人群，英語中也有這樣的詞匯，例如，Millennials指1981-1996年間出生的人，Generation X指1965-1980年間出生的人。你知道這些稱呼是怎么來的嗎？

BABY BOOMERS“嬰兒潮一代” (1946-1964)

Calling a dramatic increase in the number of children born a “baby boom” dates to the 19th century. In 1941, an issue of LIFE Magazine—discussing the increasing birthrate due to older couples having children after the Great Depression and the many marriages that came about because of the peacetime draft of 1940—proclaimed that “the US baby boom is bad news for Hitler.”

“嬰兒潮”指出生人口急劇增加，這種說法可以追溯到19世紀。1941年，《生活》雜志的一篇文章稱，“美國嬰兒潮對希特勒來說是壞消息。”這篇文章談到，年長夫婦在大蕭條后生育子女以及1940年的和平草案后許多人成婚，導致出生率上升。

The children who would come to be known as Baby Boomers, however, wouldn’t be born for a few more years as soldiers returned home from the war and the economy “boomed.”

然而，又過了幾年，等戰爭結束士兵們返回家園，經濟開始“繁榮”后，那些被稱為“嬰兒潮一代”的孩子才出生。

Although the children born from 1946 to 1964 get the name Baby Boomers, that phrase wouldn’t appear until near the end of the generation. In January 1963 the Newport News Daily Press warned of a tidal wave of college enrollment coming as the “Baby Boomers” were growing up.

盡管在1946-1964年出生的孩子被稱為“嬰兒潮一代”，但這一短語直到這一代快結束時才出現。1963年1月，《紐波特紐斯日報》警告道，隨著“嬰兒潮一代”長大，將掀起一股大學入學潮。

Oddly, an alternate name for people born during this time was Generation X; as London's The Observer noted in 1964, “Like most generations, ‘Generation X’—as the editors tag today’s under 25s—show a notable lack of faith in the Old Ones.”

奇怪的是，在這一時期出生的人還有另外一個名字，“X世代”；正如倫敦《觀察家報》1964年所指出的，“和其他世代的人一樣，‘X世代’（編者注：當今25歲以下的年輕人）明顯不夠相信神。”

GENERATION X “X世代”(1965-1980)

That comment in The Observer was in reference to a then-recently published book called Generation X by Jane Deverson and Charles Hamblett. A few years later, Joan Broad bought a copy at a garage sale, her son found it, and he fell in love with the name.

《觀察家報》的言論是參考了當時簡?戴佛森和查爾斯?哈姆布賴特出版的一本名為《X世代》的書。幾年后，瓊?博德在一個跳蚤市場買了這本書。她的兒子看到并愛上了這個名字。

That son was Billy Idol, and according to his memoir, Dancing with Myself, “We immediately thought it could be a great name for this new band, since we both felt part of a youth movement bereft of a future, that we were completely misunderstood by and detached from the present social and cultural spectrum. We also felt the name projected the many possibilities that came with presenting our generation’s feelings and thoughts.” The band Generation X would begin Billy Idol’s career.

這個男孩就是比利?愛多爾，根據他的回憶錄《自己跳舞》，“我們立刻想到這個名字可能非常適合這個新樂隊，年輕的我們對未來感到渺茫，被完全誤解且脫離了當下的社會和文化。我們也感覺到這個名字投射了許多可能展現我們這一代人的情感和思想的可能性。”樂隊“X世代”開啟了比利?愛多爾的音樂生涯。

But the name Generation X wouldn’t become associated with a wide group of people until 1991. That's the year Douglas Coupland’s Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture was released. The book became a sensation for its ability to capture early '90s culture and, although it didn’t coin the words, helped popularize a range of terms as diverse as McJob and pamphleting—and a name for an entire generation.

但直到1991，“X世代”才與一個廣泛群體聯系到一起。那一年，道格拉斯?柯普蘭的《X世代：速成文化的故事》出版了。這本書因充分展現了20世紀90年代早期的文化而轟動一時，盡管“X世代”這個詞不是它的發明，但這本書讓各種各樣的表述流行起來，例如McJob（普通乏味而又低薪的工作），pamphleting（短論）和對一代人的稱呼“X世代”。

MILLENNIALS 千禧一代 (1981-1996)

What comes after Generation X? Generation Y, obviously. That was the logic behind several newspaper columns that proclaimed the coming of Generation Y in the early '90s. But as psychologist Jean Twenge explained to NPR regarding the failure of “baby busters” as a term to describe Generation X, “Labels that derive from the previous generation don't tend to stick.”

“X世代”之后是什么？顯然是“Y世代”。這是幾十家報紙專欄的邏輯，他們將90年代初出生的人稱為“Y世代”。但是心理學家珍?溫格在接受NPR采訪時提出，考慮到無法用“生育低谷兒”來指代“X世代”，“從上一代人衍生來的標簽往往不能持久”。

Instead, in 1991 authors Neil Howe and William Strauss wrote Generations, which included a discussion about the Millennials. According to Forbes, they felt that as the oldest members of this generation were graduating high school in 2000—and everyone was focusing on the coming date—Millennials seemed a natural fit.

相反，在1991年，作家尼爾?豪依和威廉姆?施特勞斯的著作《世代》中提到了“千禧一代”。據《福布斯》報道，他們認為，這一代人中年紀最大的將在2000年高中畢業，而所有人都在關注新世紀的到來，因此“千禧一代”似乎是很恰當的稱呼。

英文來源：mentalfloss

編譯：董靜

審校：yaning