Persian rendering of Generation Z, naming Iranians born approximately 2000 to 2015. Used proudly by the cohort itself, especially in the wake of the 2022 protest wave they helped lead.
Functions as both a demographic label and a movement identity. State media uses it carefully, often pejoratively, blaming foreign social media for shaping the cohort. Nasl-z speakers flip that frame and claim the social-media nativeness as their own strength.
Nasl-z is one of the most confident generational self-names in Iranian history. Previous generations got named by sociologists. This one named itself in real time and dared the regime to argue.
Learners reading Iranian news, watching school-protest videos, or following Persian-language influencers will meet this term constantly. It is the name the protagonists of the current Iranian story use for themselves.
نسل زد (nasl-z) is the straightforward Persian rendering of Generation Z, with نسل (nasl) generation and زد the letter Z. The cohort spans Iranians born from roughly 2000 to 2015, the first generation raised entirely under the Islamic Republic with smartphones from middle school onward. The phrase moved from translation into self-naming during the 2022 Mahsa protests, when Iranian Gen Z students walked out of schools, removed hijabs in classroom videos, and ran circles around regime media on Twitter and Instagram. Older Iranians sometimes use it admiringly, sometimes nervously. Nasl-z uses it about itself with confidence the way few Iranian generations have used a generation name.
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