Baby names don't always stay where they start. Some names begin with a clear gender identity and slowly drift — or rapidly leap — across the divide. The SSA's 140-year dataset makes it possible to track exactly when that happened.
Names that are genuinely 50/50 in 2024
These names currently have an almost equal split between boys and girls — something that would have seemed bizarre to parents in the 1960s.
Charlie
- 1960: 1,247 boys, 45 girls (97% male)
- 2024: 2,084 boys, 2,109 girls (exactly 50/50)
Charlie has completed the full journey. It started as a boy's nickname (for Charles) and is now genuinely unisex. The shift accelerated in the 2010s, partly driven by celebrity use for daughters. Notably, it's done this while Charles itself remains a clear boys' name — the full name and the nickname have diverged.
Blake
- 1960: 433 boys, 0 girls (essentially 100% male)
- 2024: 1,305 boys, 1,463 girls (47% male)
Blake flipped. It was a quiet, solid boy's surname-name through most of the twentieth century and is now marginally more common for girls. The shift seems linked partly to Gossip Girl's Blake Lively, whose fame coincided exactly with the name's crossover.
Morgan
- 1960: 251 boys, 26 girls (91% male)
- 2024: 555 boys, 1,146 girls (33% male)
Morgan is now clearly trending female. Welsh in origin (from Morcant, meaning "sea circle"), it was a boy's name in the UK and US through the nineteenth century. It started crossing in the 1980s and is now about two-to-one female.
Names that started male and are now majority-female
Emerson
- 1960: 89 boys, 0 girls
- 2024: 1,259 boys, 1,976 girls (61% female)
A literary surname (Ralph Waldo Emerson) that has become a modern girls' name. The shift happened entirely in the 2000s–2020s.
Taylor
- 1960: 93 boys, 11 girls (89% male)
- 2024: 412 boys, 876 girls (68% female)
Taylor was a boy's occupational surname — a tailor — and briefly exploded for both genders in the 1990s (thanks partly to Taylor Hanson). It's now two-thirds female, likely with the Taylor Swift effect reinforcing the association.
Parker
- 1960: 54 boys, 0 girls
- 2024: 3,622 boys, 2,500 girls (59% male)
Parker is still predominantly male but has moved substantially toward 50/50. It's one of the surname-names that seems to be on a long crossing journey.
Names that always were — and still are — genuinely neutral
Dakota
- 1960: 0 boys, 13 girls (unusual early)
- 2024: 1,070 boys, 1,138 girls (exactly 51/49 female)
Dakota emerged as a genuinely unisex name from the start, popular from the late 1980s onward. It never had a clear single-gender phase.
Rory
- 1960: 637 boys, 11 girls (98% male)
- 2024: 1,593 boys, 1,103 girls (59% male)
Originally a classic Irish male name (from Ruairí, "red king"), Rory has become a favourite for girls too — helped by Gilmore Girls, where Rory Gilmore was the beloved daughter.
More names in transition
The data contains dozens of names currently mid-crossing — not yet at the endpoint but clearly moving:
Finley — originally a Scottish-Irish surname (Fionnlagh, "fair warrior"), it was used almost exclusively for boys through the early 2000s. By 2024 it's roughly 40% female and the gap is narrowing. It's at the same stage Morgan was in the early 1990s.
Avery — Old English origin ("elf ruler"), used for boys for centuries. Now heavily female in the US: roughly 80% girls in 2024. This crossing happened rapidly between 2000 and 2015 and appears largely complete.
Riley — Irish-origin surname (Raghallaigh). Crossed from predominantly male to predominantly female between 1995 and 2010. Now #42 for girls and #229 for boys — the girls' side has substantially overtaken the boys'.
Sage — nature name (the herb, but also the Latin root for "wise"). Currently roughly 60% female in the US, up from near-zero for both genders in 1990. A genuinely modern gender-neutral name with no dominant historical tradition.
River — another nature name, currently around 55% male in the US but used for both genders in roughly equal measure. Actor River Phoenix gave it male credibility in the 1980s–90s; more recent famous Rivers (River Cartwright, various celebrity children) have distributed it.
Quinn — Irish surname-name (Ó Cuinn). Predominantly male in Irish history, now predominantly female in the US (#96 girls, #497 boys). TV's Quinn Fabray (Glee) and Quinn in Dexter both contributed to the name's dual presence.
Legal and social context
Gender-neutral naming intersects with legal systems in ways that have changed dramatically in the past decade. Most US states issue birth certificates with a required sex designation, and historically names were sometimes challenged when they didn't match sex expectations. Those challenges are now rare in practice.
In some countries — Germany, for example — given names have historically been required to clearly indicate the child's gender. This meant names like Charlie and Riley faced legal barriers in some European jurisdictions that don't exist in the US. As European naming laws have relaxed (Germany's rules were liberalized in 2018), the international appetite for gender-neutral names has increased.
The SSA's dataset itself is binary (male/female), which means names used by non-binary or intersex individuals whose birth sex might be recorded differently are invisible in this data. The chart as presented reflects legal birth sex at registration, not identity.
How gender-neutral naming has changed across generations
Pre-1970s: Very few names were genuinely cross-gender. Leslie and Robin were the most notable. Even these were strongly gendered in different regions — Leslie was primarily male in the UK and primarily female in the US, and Robin could go either way.
1970s–1980s: The emergence of surname-as-first-name (Taylor, Morgan, Jordan, Casey) opened the door. Because these names had no religious or mythological gendering, they fell into a neutral zone.
1990s–2000s: The crossing events multiplied. Ashley, Lynn, Shannon, and later Avery, Riley, and Finley all moved substantially toward female while retaining male usage.
2010s–2020s: A genuine cultural shift in some naming communities toward intentionally gender-neutral names. Parents began actively seeking names for children that wouldn't signal gender — not just because names happened to be used by both sexes, but as a deliberate choice.
The mechanics of "crossing"
When a name crosses from predominantly male to predominantly female, a specific sociological sequence typically plays out:
- Pioneer phase: A few high-profile women or girls receive the name. Celebrity children and fictional characters are common pioneers.
- Tipping point: The female percentage reaches roughly 30–40%. At this point, male parents begin avoiding the name — they perceive it as "becoming female" and make other choices.
- Acceleration: As male usage drops and female usage holds steady or rises, the female percentage climbs faster. The drop in male usage actually increases the female share without requiring female usage to increase.
- Settlement: The name finds a stable equilibrium — either heavily female (like Ashley at around 90% female) or genuinely neutral (like Dakota at 50/50).
What drives the crossing?
Three patterns emerge in the data:
- Celebrity and fiction effects — Blake Lively, Taylor Swift, Rory Gilmore. When a high-profile woman carries a historically male name, it shifts perception overnight.
- Surname-to-first-name migration — As surnames enter first-name use, they often land in gender-neutral territory. Parker, Emerson, Morgan all started as last names.
- Sound drift — Names ending in -y or -ie sounds (Charlie, Rory, Finley, Riley) sit naturally on both sides of the line in English. The soft ending signals approachability, not gender.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a name that crossed from female to male? Almost none in the SSA data, and this asymmetry is well-documented. The sociological explanation: in most cultures, female status markers cross upward (to gender-neutral) more easily than male status markers cross downward. Parents are more comfortable giving daughters names that read as strong/masculine than giving sons names that read as delicate/feminine. The few exceptions are historical — Cecil and Leslie were female in some periods and male in others — but modern crossings are almost exclusively male-to-female.
Does a name become less useful for boys once it starts crossing? In practice, yes — many parents of boys avoid names that have a visible female-adoption rate. This is a rational choice for parents who want the name to "read male" unambiguously throughout their child's life. The Finley and Riley trajectories suggest that by the time a name reaches 25–30% female, male adoption begins to slow. By 40% female, male adoption often drops sharply.
Are gender-neutral names more popular now than in the past? The number of names in frequent use for both sexes has grown significantly since the 1970s. However, the most popular names are still strongly gendered — Olivia and Emma are effectively female-only, Liam and Noah are effectively male-only. The gender-neutral trend is more prominent in the 200–1000 rank range than at the very top of the chart.
Which names currently male are most likely to cross? Watch Finley (already at 40% female and moving), Sage (60% female now), and River (55% male — still tipping point territory). Names like Rowan, Logan, and Cameron are also in the 30–40% female range and have the right profile for continued crossing.
Explore the full history of any of these names on their pages: Charlie · Blake · Morgan · Rory · Taylor · Dakota
Data: U.S. Social Security Administration 1880–2024. Names with fewer than 200 total uses in a given year are sometimes suppressed to protect privacy — very rare names may show 0 when actual usage was very low.