They were called Baby Boomers because birth rates surged sharply after World War II, creating a “baby boom” in the late 1940s through the 1960s. People born during that population spike were the generation that got the name.
Why the name stuck
- The term points to the boom in births , not to any one person.
- It became a convenient label for the large postwar cohort born roughly from 1946 to 1964.
- The size of that generation was unusually big, which made the name especially fitting.
Simple way to think about it
If a country suddenly has many more babies than usual after a war, that period is called a baby boom. The children born in that boom are the Baby Boomers.
TL;DR
“Baby Boomers” means the generation born during the post–World War II spike in births, so the name comes from the boom in babies itself.