I’m curious what name(s) are likely to seem non-gender to most folks. By “evenly” unisex I mean names that are perceived to be given for either gender in roughly the same proportion, as opposed to names traditionally given to one gender except for that kid you used to know with the supercool parents and trendy clothes and faux hawk haircut.
For example, to me the name Dana is a girl’s name that’s only very occasionally given to boys, but a stranger named Alex is about 50-50. Put another way, if I’m meeting someone to buy, say, a couch off Craigslist and the text says “My name is Dana” I visualize a female but wouldn’t be shocked or surprised at a guy … but if the seller is named Isabella but a cis dude shows up for the sale, I’ll assume there’s been some miscommunication.
So for me, out of those examples only Alex “feels” evenly unisex. Does that make sense?
tip-tapping away by phone, but why would you care?
Taylor and Tyler. I’ve known about equal amounts of boys/men and girls/women with both names. I agree with Patx2, though, having also met a lot of Jamies of both genders.
As for only hearing the name, Don/Dawn and Aaron/Erin both present problems in northeastern US accents so I wouldn’t be surprised to then meet a person of either gender when someone says “Hey, I’m going to introduce you to-”. Don and Dawn are pronounced exactly the same, and Aaron and Erin are nearly (but not quite) identical.
Sasha is a unisex name (Sasha Obama, Sacha Baron Cohen). If I was told that I was to meet a Russian named Sasha, I would not be able to guess the gender (it is the Russian version of Alex).
To a western ear, almost all Chinese names are unisex.
Not quite unisex, but Spanish Cris (which is a woman) and English Chris (which is usually a man) are pronounced the same. I had to learn to treat it as unisex.
Jalen or Jayden, lots of them in classrooms now, lots of Morgans, Cory (Cori) , Dakota,Houston,Dallas. It is funny but some of the OPs names are names in my family, my youngest has a strictly female name. I once knew a woman named Harry. Danny can be a girls name, too.
And I think a lot of them actually are.
Certain characters implying strength, bravery etc tend to be (part of) boys’ given names and beauty and grace (part of) girl’s names, but there’s a huge grey area in the middle. Many of my Chinese friends and colleagues tell me they have a given name that’s often or usually assumed to be the other gender.