While most sitcoms navigating city dating life and a small group of friends like Friends or How I Met Your Mother pin the characters’ ages quite close together, Seinfeld’s protagonist characters vary widely in age.

Elaine is the youngest of the group, being 27 years old when the 1989 premiere season began, and a year younger than her Emmy-winning actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

George Costanza follows up as the second-youngest Seinfeld character, with his surmised birthday putting him at 31 years old when the show starts. 

Kramer is the elder of the group, which isn’t surprising considering how well he gets along with the characters’ parents, but he’s never actually given an age.

Since most of the characters’ ages are within a year or two of their actors’, Kramer likely began the series at 40 years old, since Michael Richards was born in 1949.

Jerry Seinfeld’s character is never actually given a specific birthday in the series, and the claims of his age seem to vary as Seinfeld’s 9-season continuity is blurred.

 George and Jerry are assumed to be childhood best friends, having grown up together at the same age. 

This gets a bit confusing when little comments by George and Jerry make it seem like they’re actually a few years apart, with Jerry being older.