2679 Names appeared on both the SSA girls' list and boys lists' in 2024. A lot of these may have been typos, or incorrect entries. For example, there were 5 boys listed as being named Sofia, 9 boy Amelias, 5 boy Elizabeths, 16 boy Olivias, etc. Likewise, there were girls named Matthew, Theodore, David, Benjamin, Thomas etc. While it's not inconceivable that a girl would be named John, or a boy named Alice, it seems like an anomaly. If you take all the names away where the number of the less popular gender is less than 1% of the total, that brings us to 2001 names used for both sexes.
Of these names, the most gender neutral are thus:
The names above are the ones who have very close numbers of boys and girls equally given the name (between 49% and 51% of the total are used for each gender-- sometimes the total was an odd number)
When you look at those, you will see some weird spellings. For example Krosby. Isn't this more commonly spelled Crosby? Khodi? What about Cody? The box above shows the gender neutrality for the spelling listed only. When you add in other spellings, often names have a more prominent gender bias. Here are how the names above rank when you add in other spellings of the same name (for example, when you pool Slone with Sloan and Sloane). Basically, if you were to yell the name on a crowded playground, what percentage of kids that come running would be of each gender?
What's leftover are the most gender neutral names-- the ones that either have only one spelling, or when you factor in other spellings, they still equal out between genders.
There are only 35 truly gender neutral names; as even though names have gotten more unisex in recent decades, usually once a name traditionally used for boys is given to girls, it becomes much less common for boys. For example, Tracy, Kelly, Leslie, and Kimberley were originally given to boys, and now they are used primarily for girls.
I put Keylen on the list, because I am not sure how it is pronounced-- is it KEE-len? KAY-len? KYE-len? I wasn't sure what to group it with! All spellings combined (most popular spelling for each gender listed): Keelan/Keelyn is 90% used for boys and 10% used for girls, Kylan/Kylynn is 87% boy & 13% girl, Kalen/Kaylin is 25% boy & 75% girl.
NOTE: I wrote this post in 2024 and for some reason never published it. Here it is, with data one year out of date!
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