Upworthy's book GOOD PEOPLE, now available - take a look!

Shop
 Explore 

gender neutral names

Parenting

8 baby names have officially hit 'gender neutral' status, with several more on the cusp

Some surprising names are now split 50/50 among baby boys and girls.

Photo credit: Canva

Baby names are moving toward more gender neutrality.

When people come up with names for their children, they often choose them based on the baby's gender (based on sex at birth). Many families will have a list of boy names and girl names at the ready, but it's all a little precarious because what constitutes a gender-specific name is constantly changing.

For instance, the name Avery has seen a dramatic shift in gendered use over the past century or so. According to Social Security Administration data, Avery was 100% a boy's name in 1880. By 1999, it was being used for girls 52% of the time (basically gender-neutral), and by 2018, Avery was being used for girls 97% of the time. Clearly, a boy's name, a girl's name, or an unisex name depends entirely upon the age in which you live.

baby names, naming children, boy names, girl names, gender neutral names, unisex names Some names are split exactly 50/50 between boys and girls. Photo credit: Canva

So, where are we with all of this in 2025? After analyzing the tens of thousands of baby name registrations on its website, BabyCenter has listed eight new names under the officially gender-neutral umbrella, meaning 50% of babies registered with this name are girls and 50% are boys.

8 baby names that became totally gender neutral in 2025

Blake

A name with two opposing meanings feels pretty appropriate for a unisex name. From the Old English blaec, Blake means "black," and from the Old English blac, it means "white" or "pale."

blake lively, blake, gender neutral name, unisex name, baby names Blake is officially a unisex name. Giphy

Jojo

Jojo can be a nickname for any name that starts with "Jo," like Jonathan ("God has given") or Joanne ("God is gracious").

Jules

Aside from taking inspiration from Jules Verne, Jules can be a nickname for Julian or Julia, both of which have roots in Latin related to Jupiter.

Koi

Yep, like the fish. Koi is a Japanese name that means carp, but it also means "love."

koi, fish, carp, gender neutral name, the name koi Koi is used as a name for boys and girls in equal measure. Giphy

Landry

Landry means "ruler of the land," and also "laundry," but let's assume most parents are going with the former.

Robin

The backyard bird, yes. But Robin is also an archaic nickname for Robert, which means "bright, famous one."

Sidney

Sidney (which can also be spelled like the Australian city of Sydney, which is more common for girls) means "dweller by the well-watered land" in Old English.

sidney, sydney, gender neutral, sidney poitier, baby names From Sidney Poitier to Sidney Sweeney, Sidney is an androgynous name. Giphy

Sri

Sri is a Sanskrit name that is sometimes used as an honorific in Hindi culture. It has a few meanings, including "light, beauty, and prosperity," and "power and royal majesty."

Some might note that a few of these names—Robin and Sidney in particular—have been functionally gender-neutral for a long time. Others on the list are not very common in American culture, so they may not feel like names that were ever gendered to begin with. But the data says what the data says, and this is where we are in 2025.

baby names, naming children, boy names, girl names, gender neutral names, unisex names Some names have moved away from gender specificity.Photo credit: Canva

The popular baby site has also shared a handful of names that are on the cusp of being 50/50 but not quite there:

Armani (47% girls, 53% boys)

Ashtyn (46% girls, 54% boys)

Callaway (47% girls, 53% boys)

Georgie (53% girls, 47% boys)

Huntley (48% girls, 52% boys)

Jae (47% girls, 53% boys)

Rory (49% girls, 51% boys)

Shiloh (52% girls, 48% boys)

Tatum (44% girls, 56% boys)

Yuri (49% girls, 51% boys)

baby names, naming children, boy names, girl names, gender neutral names, unisex names What makes a name gender specific?Photo credit: Canva

What causes names to shift away from gender specificity?

Names being gendered is purely a social construct, so it's not like there are any actual rules at play here. But like many naming trends, popular culture and entertainment can influence what names are considered masculine, feminine, or unisex.

Let's go back to Avery, for example. Avery is a variation of Alfred and was solely a boy's name in the late 1800s. But it wasn't a popular name for either gender until the 1990s, when it started to rise for boys in 1992 and then skyrocketed for girls in 1996. What caused the big spike for girls? Best guess is the film "Jerry Maguire," which had a female character (Tom Cruise's girlfriend in the beginning, played by Kelly Preston) named Avery. That movie came out in 1996, and that's also the year the name took off for girls in the U.S. Coincidence, perhaps, but probably not.

scrubs, elliott, sarah chalke, gender neutral name, unisex name Elliott didn't take off as a girl's name like it could have. Giphy

Then again, the popular TV show Scrubs, which ran from 2001 to 2010, had a central female character named Elliott, and that didn't seem to lead to an uptick in girls named Elliott. In fact, Elliott didn't even register statistically for girls until 2013 (though maybe people streaming the show did make a delayed impact).

Whether it's the influence of entertainment, shifts in gender theory, or parents moving away from name uniformity, gender-neutral names are on the rise. It will be interesting to see how many other traditionally gendered names move toward the middle in the coming years.

You can view the full report on unisex names on BabyCenter here.

From Your Site Articles

baby names

Family

'It's not Little Sun': Mom admits she's having trouble pronouncing her newborn's name

It was fine 'til other people tried to say it and now she's confused.

via JustusMoms29/TikTok (used with permission)

Justus Stroup is starting to realize her baby's name isn't that common.

One of the many surprises that come with parenthood is how the world reacts to your child’s name. It’s less of a surprise if your child has a common name like John, Mohammed, or Lisa. But if you give your child a non-traditional name that’s gender-neutral, you’re going to throw a lot of folks off-guard and mispronunciations are going to be an issue.

This exact situation happened with TikTok user Justus Stroup, who recently had her second child, but there’s a twist: she isn’t quite sure how to pronounce her child’s name either. "I may have named my daughter a name I can't even pronounce," Stroup opens the video. "Now, I think I can pronounce it, but I've told a couple of people her name and there are two people who thought I said the same exact thing. So, I don't know that I know how to [pronounce] her name correctly."

@justusmoms29
Just when you think you name your child something normal! #2under2mom #postpartum #newborn #momsoftiktok #uniquenames #babyname #babygirl #sahm #momhumor

Stroup’s daughter is named Sutton and the big problem is how people around her pronounce the Ts. Stroup tends to gloss over the Ts, so it sounds like Suh-en. However, some people go hard on the Ts and call her “Sut-ton.”

"I'm not gonna enunciate the 'Ts' like that. It drives me absolutely nuts," she noted in her TikTok video. "I told a friend her name one time, and she goes, 'Oh, that's cute.' And then she repeated the name back to me and I was like, 'No, that is not what I said.'"

Stroup also had a problem with her 2-year-old son’s speech therapist, who thought the baby’s name was Sun and that there weren’t any Ts in the name at all. "My speech therapist, when I corrected her and spelled it out, she goes, 'You know, living out in California, I have friends who named their kids River and Ocean, so I didn't think it was that far off.'"

Stroup told People that she got the name from a TV show called “The Lying Game,” which she used to watch in high school. "Truthfully, this was never a name on my list before finding out I was pregnant with a girl, but after finding out the gender, it was a name I mentioned and my husband fell in love with," says Stroup. "I still love the name. I honestly thought I was picking a strong yet still unique name. I still find it to be a pretty name, and I love that it is gender neutral as those are the type of names I love for girls."

The mother could choose the name because her husband named their son Greyson.

The commenters thought Stroup should tell people it’s Sutton, pronounced like a button. “I hear it correctly! Sutton like Button. I would pronounce it like you, too!” Amanda wrote.

“My daughter’s name is Sutton. I say it the same way as you. When people struggle with her name, I say it’s Button but with a S. That normally immediately gets them to pronounce it correctly,” Megan added.

After the video went viral, Stroup heard from people named Hunter and Peyton, who are dealing with a similar situation. “I've also noticed the two most common names who run into the same issue are Hunter (people pronouncing it as Hunner or HUNT-ER) and Payton (pronounced Pey-Ton or Pey-tin, most prefer it as Pey-tin),” she told Upworthy.

“Another person commented saying her name is Susan and people always think it is Season or Steven,” Stroup told Upworthy. After having her second child, she learned that people mix up even the simplest names. “No name is safe at this point,” she joked.

The whole situation has Stroup rethinking how she pronounces her daughter’s name. Hopefully, she got some advance on how to tell people how to pronounce it, or else she’ll have years of correcting people in front of her. "Good lord, I did not think this was going to be my issue with this name," she said.

This article originally appeared last year.