Gender neutral names have evolved over the last century in the US.
Barbara Davidson at the personal loan site NetCredit looked at the most popular gender neutral names in the US going back a century. She looked at names that were given at least 20% of the time to children assigned male at birth and at least 20% of the time to children assigned female at birth, according to the Social Security Administration.
In the early 20th century, names like Marion, Billie, and Lynn topped the gender-neutral baby name list. More recently, Peyton (or Payton), Taylor, and Riley are the most popular gender-neutral baby names. Casey, Riley, and Jessie were the most popular across all time, according to Davidson.
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Gender-neutral baby names may be getting more popular.
According to writer Melanie Mannarino, some data suggests that there were more babies getting gender-neutral names in 2017 than two decades before.
Some of the popular gender-neutral names in 2018 are traditionally male names that many babies assigned female at birth are now getting, like Noah, Logan, and James.
Davidson’s analysis showed that some names that seem very female to people today used to be gender-neutral, like Lynn, Kelly, and Stacy.
So it seems like it’s more socially acceptable to give a girl a name that’s seen as masculine than to give a boy a name that people associate with women.
