The most popular unisex names in 2015, the researchers found, were Hayden (about 39 percent girls, 61 percent boys) Charlie (about 48 percent girls, 52 percent boys), Emerson (about 60 percent girls, 40 percent boys), Rowan (about 35 percent girls, 65 percent boys), and Finley (about 60 percent girls, 40 percent boys). Rounding out the post-gender Top 10 were River, Dakota, Skyler, Phoenix and Tatum.
(For the purposes of the article, Nameberry researchers defined a name as unisex when at least 35 percent of the babies given it were of one sex, and the rest of the other.)
Tips for Choosing a Unisex Name
Want to choose a name that transcends gender definition for your baby? Here is some advice from baby-name expert Pamela Redmond Satran:
Some of the unisex names are novel and could be called the new-parent version of neologisms: Royal, Justice and Phoenix. Others are traditional, and have lost their sex-specific identity over time.
Thirty years ago, for example, Tracy was nearly eight times more common for girls than for boys. Last year, there was a nearly 50-50 split between boys and girls named Tracy, according to government data. Similarly, Elliott (in its various spellings) was running almost 100-to-1 in favor of boys years ago; last year, about one Elliott in four was a girl.
Other names have seen their gender-specificity eroded more quickly. Boys make up about 38 percent of children named Tatum, but it was 90 percent girls a decade ago, according to Social Security records. Haydens are now about 39 percent girls, up from 11 percent 10 years ago.
On BabyCenter, a popular parenting site owned by Johnson & Johnson, users have adopted acronyms like BNOG (boy name on girl), GNOB (girl name on boy) and GN (gender-neutral) when discussing naming strategies.
"Today's parents have moved beyond the dichotomy of boy and girl names," said Linda Murray, the editor in chief of BabyCenter, which declared 2015 "the year of the gender-neutral baby" and published a list of 120 suggestions, from Addison to Winter.
"They want their children to grow up and be themselves, free from stereotypes," she said. "Boys can wear nail polish, girls can ride skateboards. It's all good."
The vogue for unisex names is being driven, in part, by millennials, who are in their 20s and early 30s and in their prime child-bearing years. "Millennials ar e an open-minded and accepting group," Ms. Murray said, "and they don't want their children to feel pressured to conform to stereotypes that might be restrictive."
Indeed, marketers have found that gender neutrality is a selling point for millennials raised in an era of growing economic opportunities for women and increasing tolerance for nontraditional gender roles and identities.
Raising a child free of gender stereotypes was a goal for Chelsea Marsh, a millennial parent from Fort Wayne, Ind., when she and her husband gave their 6-month-old daughter the either-or name Paris.
"I wouldn't go as far as to name my baby girl Jack," said Ms. Marsh, a 27-year-old sales agent. "But my goal is to allow her to experience the world without the barriers of pink girlie things. I want her to be strong, play in the dirt and challenge herself to try new things, even if it's not 'what girls do.'"
"I would do the same for my son," she added, "if he wanted to be a dancer instead of a basketball player."
Same-sex parents, whose numbers are growing, may also be inclined to blur traditional gender boundaries.
To Yojana Vazquez and her wife, Elaine, choosing the gender-neutral names Kai and Kalo for their twin daughters, now 2, was part of a larger plan to keep gender options open, Ms. Vazquez said.
"Instead of always referring to them as our daughters, we say our children or kids," said Ms. Vazquez, 29, of Springfield, Va. "We also try to dress them in clothing from all over the children's department. We mix and match, a pink girlie shirt with a boy's cargo shorts. A superhero boy's shirt with a tutu skirt."
The goal, she said, is "to make sure not to influence them on who they are and, ultimately, who they will grow up to be."
Baby-name trends, it should be noted, come with a word of caution. Like all trends, some turn out to be nothing more than fads. Last month, for example, BabyCenter reported an uptick in baby names like Eevee and Onix, inspired by Pokémon Go.
Gender-ambiguous names have come into vogue before, Ms. Satran said, first in the 1960s among counterculture types (recall the babies named Sunshine and Rain), and again in the 1980s among baby boomer parents who hoped that giving their daughters names like Blake or Madison would better equip them to take on men in the workplace.
Still, unisex baby names account for only a small percentage of those chosen each year. Of the 3.9 million babies born last ye ar, only 1.7 percent were given unisex names, according to Nameberry's analysis of government data. The most popular baby names in the country continued to be Noah and Liam for boys, and Emma and Olivia for girls.
Even so, in an era marked by Caitlyn Jenner's endlessly publicized transition from Bruce, as well as gender-bending shows like Amazon's "Transparent," the unisex baby name may also prove to be in its infancy.
"Feminism is cool again, gay marriage is the law of the land and transgender celebrities have come into the mainstream," said Ms. Satran, the author of 10 baby-name books. "So who knows? We may yet see the day when boys are named Caitlyn and girls are named Bruce, and nobody thinks twice."
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