where did the name baby boomer come from
Baby boomers The phrase baby boom refers to a noticeable increase in the birth rate. The post-war population increase was first described as a "boom" by Sylvia F. Porter in a column in the May 4, 1951, edition of the New York Post, based on the increase in the population of the U.S. of 2,357,000 in 1950.[8] According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first recorded use of "baby boomer" is from 1970 in an article in The Washington Post.[9] Various authors have delimited the baby boom period differently. Landon Jones, in his book Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation (1980), defined the span of the baby-boom generation as extending from 1943 through 1960, when annual births increased over 4,000,000. Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe, well known for their generational theory, define the social generation of Boomers as that cohort born from 1943 to 1960, who were too young to have any personal memory of World War II, but old enough to remember the postwar American High.[10]
Dear John letter While the exact origins of the phrase are unknown, it is commonly believed to have been coined by Americans during World War II. "John" was the most popular and common baby name for boys in America every single year from 1880 through 1923,[1] making it a reasonable 'placeholder' name when denoting those of age for military service. Large numbers of American troops were stationed overseas for many months or years, and as time passed many of their wives or girlfriends decided to begin a relationship with a new man rather than to wait for the original one to return.[citation needed]