Gender Ratios in Baby Names

Are baby names really as gendered as we think? To find out, we looked at every name in our database that has been used for both boys and girls, and calculated how skewed each name is toward one gender.

The Distribution

For each name, we computed the percentage of male usage out of total usage. A name at 0% male is used exclusively for girls, while 100% male means it's used only for boys. The histogram below shows how names distribute across this spectrum.

A U-Shaped Distribution

The result is a striking U-shaped curve. The vast majority of names cluster at the extremes — they are overwhelmingly used for one gender or the other. Very few names sit near the 50/50 mark.

Try toggling "Hide 100% male / 100% female names" to zoom into the middle of the distribution. Even excluding the most extreme bins, the U-shape persists. Names near the 50/50 line — the truly gender-neutral names — are relatively rare. The ones that do appear there (like Casey, Riley, or Jordan) tend to be well-known as unisex names for good reason: they really are used nearly equally for both genders.

What This Means

Despite growing interest in gender-neutral naming, the data shows that most names remain strongly associated with one gender. This doesn't mean naming trends aren't shifting — new unisex names do emerge over time — but the overall landscape is still heavily polarized. When you're searching for a truly gender-neutral name, you're picking from a surprisingly small pool.

Namey's name discovery tool lets you filter by gender preference, making it easy to explore names across the full spectrum — from strongly gendered to perfectly neutral.